Instinct: The Little Things
by Jewcika
Summary: Based on my chaptered fic, "Instinct." Oneshots that serve as my excuse to write up some slash/humor, which still fall into the Instinct universe but don't fit into the story itself.
1. Cuddling

**Notes:** This originally started out as just a oneshot to outline some of the VladDanny interaction that took place while Danny was pregnant. It ended up turning into something from Vlad's POV at some point in the distant future.

* * *

**Cuddling**

When Danny's health had first begun to decline, the baby's had as well. Vlad had felt it, both emanating from Danny and communicated from the baby itself. It had been shocking at first, and he'd been on edge for the longest time before he'd realized that itching in the back of mind was actually his child and mate's conditions. That in itself had sparked a strange sort of instinct in him, which he hadn't been quite sure he was comfortable with at the time.

Still, the man hadn't been able to bring himself to talk about it with the pregnant teen. "It" being, of course, what they both knew they'd eventually have to do but were so very comfortable ignoring at that moment, which was sharing their energy in a physical way.

Danny had passed out at the dinner table, and naturally this had evoked a wave of concern from his parents. To make things worse, Jazz had been visiting for spring break, and she'd been quick to catch on to exactly what was wrong. Danny couldn't believe she'd remembered every detail of what he'd told her about ghost pregnancies, really.

In other words, the whole ordeal had ended in Danny getting yelled at by Maddie, and Jack eventually dragging Vlad up to Danny's room and locking them inside with a ghost shield surrounding the perimeter. Danny loved his family, really, but sometimes he just wanted to sic Klemper on them. Vlad's suggestion during such times was to use Behemoth, the former guardian of the Skeleton Key.

Vlad had been the first to initiate anything, obviously concerned about Danny, who was looking very pale at the time even for being in his ghost form. It took a good amount of talking, arguing, and clawing to get to where they needed to be, but they'd both eventually (and reluctantly) ended up on Danny's bed, gingerly touching as if the other were an active land mine.

The two half-ghosts had never known anything so awkward. At first they'd felt nothing - apparently simply touching each other wouldn't do the trick. And so Vlad had ventured to touch Danny's stomach.

The reaction was instant. Danny had gasped and sighed in relief when he'd felt the energy from Vlad's hot core coursing through him - and, of course, feeding the baby. Vlad was the most surprised of all, however, because that was the very first time he really _felt_ their child. When Danny had told him he was pregnant, he had been too shocked to think much about it, but when he'd finally been able to focus on the sensations and the feelings he'd truly been blown away.

There were no words for it. And upon having actually felt it for himself, he could understand why the thought of terminating the pregnancy had never crossed the other hybrid's mind. It was truly out of the question.

The whole ordeal had ended rather abruptly with Maddie slamming the door open, yielding an ecto-gun and threatening Vlad to, "Get away from my baby!" Apparently Danny had been a little too vocal in his relief when getting energy for the first time from the other ghost. It had been the first of many humiliating incidents for the pregnant teen when he'd realized he'd actually been _moaning_ - and quite loudly, at that.

Then, there were other times when Vlad literally had to force Danny into not-cuddling (they'd both refused to call it "cuddling," even though it was what they were essentially doing). The boy was stubborn, and he'd go as far as forsaking his own health for as long as he could in order to avoid the older hybrid. It'd be especially difficult when he'd get into periods of resentment towards Vlad early on in the pregnancy.

Danny was the very definition of a resentful attitude when he'd first moved in with Vlad mid-March. Move-in day had one of those awkward days, as it went.

"Ow! _Will you stop that_?"

"You're doing it wrong, Vlad!"

"No, I'm not."

"You're too close!"

"I'm _supposed_ to be close, you nitwit!"

"Not _this_ close, you fruit loop!"

"Well, how else do you suggest I give you energy, hm? Because this isn't exactly pleasant for me either, Daniel."

"You're not the one who has to freakin' cuddle and get groped by the evil half-ghost in his forties! What do you have to complain about?"

"Oh, I am _not_ 'groping' as you so eloquently put it. But I _am_ the one who has to put up with the immature, stubborn, temperamental eighteen year old who - OUCH! **STOP THAT**!"

"Well then, stop talking crap about me! And _don't touch me there_!"

"Alright, that's it! I give up! You can make your own energy if I'm so terrible at this, you little rat!"

"FINE!"

A long silence had transpired between them in which Vlad had floated over to the other side of the room and busied himself with typing away on his laptop, while Danny simply lay there in a huff. Eventually, the absence of much needed energy had become conspicuous, especially after the very recent and pleasant exchange was still fresh in his mind. Danny hadn't last long.

"...Vlad?"

"What?" Vlad had snapped.

"...Can you come back here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that I'm incompetent at sharing my energy."

"Oh, come on! Can you just... c'mon, just come back to bed. Please?" Danny hadn't even been able to bring himself to care about his terrible choice of words at the time.

"...Fine."

And that was how it had been for about a month.

April was when the incident with the baby turning human had occurred. Vlad couldn't explain it, but he'd immediately known that something was wrong - and he'd also immediately known that Danny and his child were the ones in trouble. It had been a fear that gripped his very core, a pain that felt very much his own even though he'd been doing nothing to cause it. No sooner had he felt that strange intuition in the back of his mind that he had teleported to Casper High, quickly seeking out Danny's ectoplasmic signature. He'd found the teen bent over in agony, whimpering and gripping his middle as if it would lessen the pain.

They'd both known, then. The child was very obviously a hybrid. Vlad, however, was the first to catch on to the fact, having had the clearer head of the two at that moment. Despite everything, the man hadn't been able to keep in his excitement at the prospect of the child being just the same as he and Danny.

As he'd thought fast and decided what the best course of action would be, he'd tried to distract Danny from the pain by talking about their half-ghost child. Vlad had morphed slowly from his ghost form and back in a repetitive motion, his whole body pressed tightly against Danny who he'd instructed to lay back on the bed. Smoothing the white hair with soft movements, trying to keep Danny as relaxed as possible under the circumstances, the baby had eventually reverted back to its ghost form. They'd both stayed like that for a while, before Danny had recovered and realized the compromising position they were in. That part had been rather unpleasant, coming from the temperamental teen.

Up until that point, it had all built up to Vlad realizing that something strange was happening between him and Danny. The lingering touches when they weren't exchanging energy, the thoughts of the teen that constantly invaded his thoughts - whenever they weren't occupied by those of his son, that is. In other words, all the small things that had had Vlad on edge up until his discovery of their mate status.

In hindsight, Vlad thought he could more or less pinpoint the incident responsible for the embarrassingly obvious display on the roof where he'd first manifested the signs of mating, right after they'd picked out the baby's name.

It had been the night before. Vlad had been up late working on some paperwork. Just as he'd been passing Danny's room, however, he could've sworn he'd heard distressed sounds coming from inside the bedroom. Tensing, he'd noticed the uncomfortable feeling that Danny and Dan were in trouble, were both afraid. And so, quietly as he could, he'd opened the door to find the boy in the midst of a nightmare.

Frowning, he'd sat down on the bed and gently shaken the white-haired ghost.

"Daniel, wake up," he'd whispered, only for Danny to immediately shoot up in bed in a state of wide-eyed panic.

"No! No, no, please! Just take it out!" Danny had cried.

"Take what out, Daniel?"

"Please, I have to save them, Vlad!"

"Save _who_? Daniel, look, you were having a nightmare -"

"I swear I won't be him, I swear! You just have to _help_ me!"

"Daniel, shh, calm down! You're scaring the baby!"

_And scaring **me**_, Vlad had thought to himself as he'd watched the boy clutch the sheets in a vice grip, shaking from head to toe. Both his and Dan's fear was stabbing at him like knives. At that moment, Vlad would have done _anything_ for the other half-ghost, if only to see him calm and content once again.

"I'm not the one scaring it!"Danny had responded hysterically. "It's -" he'd cut himself off, shaking his head and burying his face in his hands. Vlad had held the boy flush against him until he'd gotten a hold of himself, Danny gripping him as if his life depended on it the whole time. Danny, of course, had distracted from the whole incident with sarcastic remarks and annoyed looks aimed at the billionaire until the man had finally left.

Vlad had never asked about that dream. He'd drawn his own conclusions after hearing every detail of the alternate future, and after years of waking up to his shaking and distraught mate after yet another nightmare, particularly after the whole incident with Walker and Dan.

And then, of course, there was the single energy-exchange session he and Danny had shared which he regarded with such fondness. It had been in August, right after he'd accepted the whole "soulmate" situation.

It had started off with the usual argument, but had eventually descended into a most comfortable silence. Dan was particularly happy that day, for some reason, which in turn had put both parents in a wonderful mood. Danny had accepted his subtle touches and caresses as he lay his head on the man's chest, only occasionally giving him a half-hearted glare. Danny was sleeping through most of the day at that point, only waking up when he needed to eat or get energy from Vlad.

Vlad had tried it, just as Danny had been dozing off. He'd done what instinct had told him and touched that part inside his ghost side's core where he could feel that strange allure for his mate. He'd felt his eyes change to a bright magenta, he'd felt the pleasant sensations as he released waves of spectral energy aimed specifically towards attracting and pleasing his mate.

The half-asleep ghost had stirred, making a noise of contentment. He'd suddenly looked up at Vlad with half-lidded, brilliantly red eyes. Something had stirred inside Vlad as he'd stared into those scarlet pools, and he'd clutched the younger ghost protectively to him - only to have him respond by burying himself into the billionaire's neck with a sleepy whine.

It would all be a lost cause without their ghost sides. They probably would never have interacted past the college reunion so many years ago were it not for their ghostly kinship. But none of that mattered. Vlad had known then, after first willingly calling Danny's ghost side to him, that he'd unfortunately landed himself in something he couldn't possibly escape. And still, he hadn't been nearly as upset as he should've been.

The last memory was something Vlad often brought up when he'd angered Danny a bit beyond what was apparently okay to do. After all, they'd been through so many conflicting emotions throughout their rocky relationship, but in the end it all came down to the fact that they were the only ones for each other.

And it might've only been because of Dan that they were together, but still Vlad loved Danny to death. Who would he possibly be without the other man? Would he even be able to _exist_ without him?

In the end, it was the little things that mattered most. In the end, nothing much mattered but his soulmate.


	2. Sleep

**Notes:** Poor Vlad. Even villanous half-ghosts need their beauty sleep. Short and sweet drabble. Fluff is good every once in a while, after all. X3

* * *

**Sleep**

At two in the morning, Maddie and Jack obviously didn't expect to hear the frantic ringing of their doorbell. Naturally, the two ghost hunters rushed down the stairs, ghost weapons in hand ready for a ghost to be on their doorstep, ignoring the fact that a ghost wouldn't be likely to wait for permission to be let in.

On top of their doorbell ringing at two in the morning, they also didn't expect to see their college friend on their doorstep, bags under his eyes, frazzled hair out of its ponytail, and a crying Dan in his arms.

Jack and Maddie lowered their weapons. Maddie opened her mouth to speak, but Vlad beat her to it before she could.

"I haven't slept in eight days. Haven't had time, even when Dan will settle down. So many press interviews about the elections. Daniel's been busy with school, and he's still so drained since Dan was born, I obviously couldn't keep him up with this. Please, you _have to help me_!"

Maddie blinked at him with wide eyes while Jack stared at his usually composed friend in surprise.

"And he won't stop crying?" the woman asked.

"Oh, he'll stop, alright. He'll stop just long enough to lull me into a false sense of security!" Vlad said, a slightly hysterical pitch in his voice.

The two grandparents frowned sympathetically at the half-ghost, remembering well those sleepless nights with Danny and Jazz.

"Have you tried -"

"I've tried everything!" Vlad interrupted Jack. "I've tried singing to him, I've tried rocking him, I must have fed and burped and changed him a million times by now, I've tried to use my energy -"

"It's alright, Vlad, just calm down. This happens, it's probably just the baby formula you've been feeding him. Look, how about we take Dan for the night and you can sleep in the guest room upstairs?"

Vlad's tired, bloodshot eyes seemed to brighten at the prospect of sleep, and he quickly nodded. "Oh, thank you, Maddie!"

Maddie took the baby in her arms as Vlad passed him to her. However, Dan seemed to cry harder as he was taken away from his father. Vlad winced, his ears aching and head pounding.

Maddie shushed and tried rocking the child, but Dan just continued to wail. Vlad looked distressed and made to get his son back, but Jack got to him before he could. The half-ghost tensed, eyes briefly flashing red.

What happened next surprised everyone. As soon as Jack adjusted Dan against his bulky form, the baby stopped crying, simply making soft whining noises as he settled down and cuddled against the large man's frame. Jack grinned widely.

"Hey! He stopped crying! Guess he likes his Grandpa Jack!" Jack said in a soft voice, bouncing Dan up and down in motions that were much less clumsy than was customary for him.

Maddie approached her husband and grandchild, but was unexpectedly pushed out of the way before she could get too far. Her eyes widened when Vlad suddenly jumped on Jack in a tight hug, Dan et al.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Oh, Jack, ol' buddy, ol' pal!"

Vlad quickly released the man, stumbling over to the couch before collapsing on it. Within seconds, he was out, one of the ghost-hunting devices beeping in the background as the half-ghost's energy abruptly spiked and began to replenish what his sleep-deprivation had caused him to lose.

Jack was surprised for a brief second, but seemed amused nonetheless. Even Dan giggled in Jack's arms, though all Maddie could do was stare at her old "friend" in shock.


	3. Plushie

**Notes:** Still busy with NaNoWriMo. Update for "Instinct" should be sometime next week.

* * *

**Plushie**

Danny was very much ready to leave Vlad's manor, despite how nervous he was to be living on his own. Dan had just turned one a month ago, and Danny and Jazz had been going around the monstrous house collecting all of Danny's and a handful of Dan's things. Because of how difficult things were with Dan constantly needing both of his parents' presences and energies around, the living arrangement was already becoming complicated. Vlad and Danny each had to have a baby-ready room in their respective homes, and they still had to see more of each other than Danny was comfortable with.

Danny wasn't moving to a luxurious place by any means. It was a cheap apartment across town – all the way on the other side, as far as possible from the billionaire. Danny felt some degree of embarrassment that the rent would be paid by Vlad, though there wasn't much that could be done about it if he wanted to finish his degree on time. He couldn't work – he had Dan to tend to, after all, and his classes would already be taking up way too much of his time. It had already been difficult enough to attend school outside of online classes the last month and a half, and it'd only get harder when he transferred to Amity Park's University of Chicago campus. With limited branch-campus classes and very limited time, Danny felt it would be a miracle to actually get his degree with all the credits elementary education majors had to have.

But at least his life was finally slowing down... in a sense. It was a relief to be past those trying first few months of raising Dan. The hardest part hadn't been the dirty diapers or the sleepless nights, however, but rather having to get used to looking at his son's ghost form everyday. He'd lost count of how many times he'd broken down when he was in the privacy of his own room. It was not a flattering position to be found in, especially by Vlad. Though that had only happened once, it had motivated him to get over himself and try harder. It had worked, for the most part, though it had taken many long-distance and late-night talks with with friends and sister.

It had definitely gotten easier, Danny realized, thanks to everyone's support. Even Vlad, dare he say it, had been extremely helpful and mindful of him. He realized it was probably because the man's ghost side was in love with him, but he nevertheless couldn't have gotten by without the man's more or less unconditional support.

All that was over now, however, and it was still a relief on top of everything else to finally get to live his own life and not have to be constantly smothered or hit on. He wasn't foolish enough to think he'd be able to go completely on his own, though. He still had Dan, as Danny was reminded now that he was coming across toy after toy littered through the manor while gathering his things.

"Well, that's everything," Jazz said as the two walked down the hallway. "You're sure you've checked every room?"

"Yeah, but I'll probably be back sooner or later. It's a big house, I can't have gotten everything in one go, you know?"

"Alright, guess that's it for now, then."

"Wait!" Danny stopped. "I never checked Vlad's room."

Jazz raised an eyebrow at her brother, giving him a look that revealed what she was thinking at that moment. "Vlad's room?"

"Shut up! It's for Dan's stuff, Jazz!"

"Uh-huh."

Danny didn't respond, simply shooting her a dirty look as he led her to the billionaire's bedroom. He truly regretted having told her about Vlad's little crush a few months back.

Danny's eyes roamed over everything once inside the room. He truly wasn't there a lot, but Dan spent much of his time in there, as had been testified by Vlad constantly tripping over the baby's toys in the middle of the night during the past year.

The first thing that caught Danny's eye was a picture on Vlad's bedside table. It was in an obviously expensive frame, as were all of Vlad's new "family" pictures. This one in particular showed Danny in human form with Dan curled up against him in ghost form, the two of them fast asleep on the couch. When had Vlad taken that? Danny shrugged, realizing the image made him smile regardless.

"Uh, Danny? You wanna come over here a sec?"

Danny turned his attention from the picture to Jazz, who was on the other side of the bed lifting up one of Vlad's pillows. Danny raised an eyebrow and walked around the bed to see what she was staring at so intently. He immediately spotted it and began to choke on nothing, stammering incoherently before he found his voice.

"Y-You're freakin' kidding me," he sputtered, horrified.

Jazz picked the object up and turned it over, inspecting it. "Wow, there's real silver in this."

Danny snatched the thing from her, looking it over. He couldn't help but gawk at it.

It was small, about seven inches tall. It had obviously been intricately made at Vlad's discretion, every stitch perfectly sewn and every minute detail included into the object. Danny was looking at a miniature Danny Phantom plushie.

Like Jazz had said, the threading was real silver. The cloak and suit were made out of silk, the white boots and gloves out of leather. Spandex had obviously not been good enough for Vlad. The white hair atop its head felt like it might as well be real. The eyes, though, were blood-red instead of green. Danny was further taken aback when he noticed that they were made out of what appeared to be real rubies.

"Didn't you say Vlad had one of Mom a few years ago?"

"Mmhm," Danny agreed distractedly.

"Looks like he's moved on... Anything you want to tell me, Danny?"

Danny's head snapped up and he glared at her in disgust. Jazz frowned.

"Calm down, Danny! I was just joking, you don't have to do the eye thing with me. Come on, let's just finish up here."

She walked away to inspect the bookshelves and scour the floor while Danny looked at her retreating back in confusion. "But I'm not..."

He tucked the stuffed toy under the pillow again and walks towards a vanity table. Upon seeing his reflection, he simply grit his teeth in frustration. Of course, his eyes currently matched those of the miniature replica he was looking at moments ago.

Why, though? He really _wasn't_ angry - just creeped out. Even if the gesture was rather flattering. And kind of sweet, really, even if it was totally obsessive. Though the obsessive part was perhaps what made the whole thing so...

Danny's thoughts cut themselves off and his eyes widened at where his reverie had been taking him. "W-We have to leave, Jazz!" he stuttered, wanting nothing more than to leave that house and the scent of the man he'd been living with for over a year.

"What, why?"

"We're done, come on, let's go!"

"But, Danny -"

Jazz didn't get a chance to say anything else as Danny pulled her from the room at a frantic pace.


	4. Mistletoe

**Notes:** This is one of those oneshots I've had in my head for a while, now. A bit weird, I think, but I figured I'd still post, haha. Directly referred to by Maddie in chapter six.

* * *

**Mistletoe**

It was the first Christmas Danny had spent at Fenton Works since he was seventeen, and the fourth one avoiding the Truce Party. Dan had unfortunately found out about the party, however, when he was talking to Skulker, the metallic ghost ridden with the Christmas cheer that usually hit ghosts this time of year. Needless to say, the four year old was quite upset that his parents refused to attend, so Danny had suggested a Christmas Eve party at his parents' house, knowing that the boy's grandparents had a knack for cheering him up.

Naturally, his sister had come, as had Tucker and Sam. Though Danny was now regretting the fact that anyone had come, or that he hadn't had the common sense to stay home and avoid all human contact. But he was especially regretting having let his mom serve Vlad more eggnog after he'd started cheerfully talking about the eighties with Jack. He'd _told_ her it was a warning sign, but as always, nobody listened to Danny Fenton.

"Daniel, since the moment I saw you under that starlit sky on the rooftop, carrying our child and glowing oh-so-brightly, I knew I was in love with you. It doesn't matter what the circumstances might be, whether a ghostly influence or not, but you are my other half whether we agree or not. Since the moment I met you, I knew you were special – in whatever way that might have been, you are the only one who can possibly understand me and vice versa."

Danny was wide-eyed with incredulity. He obviously knew about Vlad's feelings, since the billionaire had made them clear - incessantly so, as often as he could, whenever the two accidentally found themselves alone. But it was a completely different thing to do it in front of his family! In front of his friends! In front of_ everyone_!

"Those eyes of yours, whether brilliant sapphires, alluring rubies, or enchanting emeralds, are so precious they make one easily lose themselves in their depths. You are the lost Atlantis that a life-long quest digs up, disbelief painting the very discovery but nothing minimizing its beauty and wonder. Without a doubt, you are my soul, your existence making sure mine has worth. Just ask, Daniel, and I will buy you every single star in space, though not a single one would compare to you."

He thought he saw his mom cover her mouth out of the corner of his eyes, her eyes shining with wide-eyed, shocked emotion at hearing Vlad speak about Danny like he'd never even spoken about her.

_Mom! It's your son that your fifty year old college frenemy's telling these things to! Dan, don't smile! Just tell your father to shut up! Tucker, stop laughing! Jazz – Jazz, not you too! What part of this is funny? Sam – yes, Sam, just punch him! DO SOMETHING! NO! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?_

Despite the erratic thoughts which never did quite make it to his vocal chords, he couldn't block out everything that Vlad was saying, well-rehearsed out of some sappy romance novel or something so it would be moving to his parents and seem non-threatening to everyone else.

"I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. After all, your eyes wouldn't be glowing so radiantly if that weren't the case. We are meant for each other, Daniel, literal soulmates, as our beautiful child is testament to. Please, this Christmas, will you not simply accept the wonderful destiny that life has carved out for us and build a lifetime with me?"

Danny couldn't honestly say he'd expected this, though in retrospect he knew he should have. He wanted to threaten the guy as he revealed their official soulmate status to the room. His parents would certainly be convinced now, at least. He wanted to blast him or insult him or just do _something_, but he was frozen on the spot. And Vlad knew it well, judging from the wolfish grin he currently wore. He could hear his dad whispering something to his mom behind him as well as his son giggling. He could feel his friend's gazes burning through him as well as his eyes glowing red more intensely than he'd ever felt them do so before.

At that point, Danny's brain was officially shut down (that and he wasn't exactly all that sober himself), a glazed look in his eyes as he struggled to catch up with the events. Consequently, when Vlad looked up at the ceiling, he could do nothing but stare at the spot as well, barely registering the mistletoe that hung there. Vlad then grabbed him by the waist and, after donning a triumphant grin, captured Danny's lips with his in a paradoxically soft yet passionate kiss. Danny was as good as gone the second Vlad turned on his mating charms to their fullest, and the younger hybrid simply melted against the billionaire.

His arms wrapped themselves around the man's neck against his will as the part of his brain that was usually in control – the non-hormonal, non-ghost part – was turned to mush by the exquisite scent of spearmint, incense, and the ocean that Vlad was giving off in tidal waves.

Danny hated every second that passed as he beat the jubilant little red-eyed Danny Phantom in his head in an attempt to release himself from this trap. He hated the fact that this was the most incredible kiss he'd ever had, the most pleasurable sensation on par with his pregnancy. He hated that it was all forcefully thrust upon him in a most unfair and humiliating manner.

Vlad had cheated.

He'd made that single move past what had become somewhat acceptable to Danny. The stubborn and determined part of Danny, the dominant part, was blind with rage. However, that tiny little impulsive and obsessive part of him that was ruled by his ghost side was relieved – ecstatic, even.

In his current bliss, however, Danny couldn't help but illogically think that if he kept this up just a _second_ longer, he'd be able to hold on for a very long time afterwards. Hold on to what? He wasn't quite sure.

He didn't hear the footsteps behind him, but he heard the gasp that followed them. Suddenly, that was all it took for some sense of sensibility to make it past his haze, and the second it did it, the situation he was in hit him full-force.

He wasn't aware of having acted, but he was aware that it had been him who'd just grabbed Vlad by the shoulders and tossed him across the room with all the brute strength his ghost half could afford him. In his shock, he'd done the first that came to mind, which had apparently involved shot-putting Vlad into the wall and creating a new entrance between the living room and the kitchen.

That effectively broke any spell which had come over everyone gathered. His parents were suddenly scolding him, Sam was yelling at him with a crestfallen expression, Tucker was stuttering over questions, Jazz was going on about repressed attraction, and Dan was laughing gleefully after seeing his mom throw his dad like he had. Danny winced at the reactions, excusing himself before going over to Vlad.

Danny's face was burning as he begrudgingly helped the man up. Vlad shot him an angry look that threatened certain bodily harm, but Danny turned the tables right around. He grabbed the billionaire by the neck of his winter sweater and leaned in close to him.

"You touch me again and I'll tell Mom and Dad _everything_. They'll make sure you don't have to be near Dan ever again. Mom's _still_ willing to find a way if you get to be too much, you know," he hissed into Vlad's ear, and the billionaire had to struggle to catch the words from how silently they had been said.

The younger hybrid's neon green eyes left no room for witty banter.

"Daniel, relax! I was only being honest," Vlad said in a placating manner.

"I think you knew perfectly well that I didn't want you being 'honest' in front of my family and friends, Vlad!" he hissed.

Vlad's raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seem to be arguing much through our kiss, little badger."

"You tricked me!"

"I did not. You could have just as easily pushed me away. You're not attracted to me, after all, are you?" Vlad said patronizingly.

Danny was quiet, glaring heatedly at the man. "I'm going to tell them," he finally whispered, and Vlad's eyes widened.

"Daniel!"

But the half-ghost didn't listen, standing up and heading determinedly towards his parents, both of whom were currently speaking in hushed voices. Danny had a good idea what they were talking about, and it made him even more determined to make Vlad pay. Before he could make it, however, he was grabbed by the arm in an iron grip.

"Sorry about that! Don't know what came over me. Who wants more eggnog?" Vlad said rather quickly, disappearing into the kitchen and dragging Danny with him. Once they were a safe distance away from the speculative conversation going on in the living room, he turned to Danny.

"Fine. No more bold advances."

"No more advances _period_."

Vlad raised an eyebrow, not intimidated by the raven-haired man's angry red eyes or extended claws. "You forget, little badger, that I still have leverage on you."

"What leverage?" Danny scoffed, but faltered when he saw the billionaire's smirk.

"The same leverage I've had since day one, of course."

"The one which doesn't exist anymore, you mean. My parents already know everything, Vlad."

"But the world doesn't."

Danny's eyes narrowed. "That's the stupidest bluff I've ever heard from you. You're not that big of an idiot."

"You forget how much things have changed, Daniel. I've got plenty of power in the Ghost Zone, and as long as I've still got you and Dan, I've already won."

Danny opened his mouth to retort, but a small voice caught both their attentions.

"Mommy?"

Danny backed away from where he'd been staring down the other man, his glare melting away. "Yeah, sweetheart?"

"I'm sleepy," the boy mumbled.

Vlad and Danny looked at each other, both deflating rather quickly.

"Do you want to sleep here or go home, Dan? You know Santa will come either way, right?" Danny said.

"Santa's not real, Mom." Danny frowned, and Vlad couldn't help but chuckle. "Are you and Daddy gonna sleep here, too?"

Danny swallowed at the look his sleepy son gave him. He now fully understood how his parents so easily caved in to simple puppy-dog eyes when he was a kid. "If... if that's what you want."

The child nodded vigorously, turning into his ghost form and flying towards his mother, cuddling into his arms. The two parents gave matching smiles, though without looking at each other.

"Alrighty, then. Let's tuck you in upstairs, 'kay?"

"'Kay. Night, Daddy."

Vlad patted the boy's head, smiling down at him. "Goodnight, _lapushka_."

Moments later, Danny was grateful to be away from everyone as he tucked Dan into his old bed. He'd decided to turn in as well, and was already in his pajamas as he ran his fingers through the boy's wavy black hair next to him. He was trying to explain to his son what had happened earlier... and failing miserably.

"Dan... What happened earlier... I mean, your dad was... It doesn't mean... It was an -"

"Does this mean we're gonna live with Daddy?"

Danny sighed. "No, Dan. We're not going to live with your dad."

"Oh..."

The man rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Dan. That tone of voice was absolutely heartbreaking. The kid put him in such awkward situations, sometimes!

"Look, Dan..."

He trailed off when he saw the boy was already fast asleep. Shaking his head dejectedly, Danny let his head hit the pillows, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. He knew he had the power to make things so much simpler. It would be as easy as finally giving into the impulses that had been manifesting themselves over the years. If only making things simpler wasn't so complicated.

Because giving into those instincts would involve giving in to the most primitive aspects of his ghost half. It wasn't actually _him_ who wanted all this, but rather Danny _Phantom_. He wasn't stupid, he _did_ realize that some things were rather obvious; Phantom wanted Vlad, and that was that. But Danny most certainly didn't. It wasn't fair, he thought sullenly, to have to constantly keep up this battle. But he couldn't just let his ghost side win. He didn't seem very adept at handling that half when it was so strong, after all. Because no matter what he told himself, no matter that he was a twenty-two year old man, he was still afraid of so much. Afraid of not being strong enough, both for himself and for his loved ones.

As he finally drifted off to sleep, Danny wondered why the Christmas season was always so unpleasant.


	5. Ghost Pox

**Notes:** *grins* Did someone ask for some slash? Let's kick things up a notch for our two favorite ghost mates. Oh so glad to finally get this one out of my head, aha. I'm kinda antsy about this because I don't know if it crosses over to M or not. I still feel like it's alright for a T rating... but then again, I started out frequenting the South Park fandom.

* * *

**Ghost Pox**

Danny was sure it was karma. His little white lie when he'd told his parents everything and tried to cover for Vlad had finally come back to haunt him.

He had ghost pox.

Not only was it apparently a real disease, but there was now an epidemic afflicting the Ghost Zone... and the half-ghosts of Amity Park.

It had, not surprisingly, started out with Box Lunch. Apparently the four year old had gotten the ghost pox from some half-formed creature out in the Ghost Zone, and naturally his son had been the next to get it, given that the girl was always hanging around him. Dan had been angry, assuring his mother time and time again that he'd _told_ Box Lunch she'd get sick from eating ghost worms. From there, Danny had gotten it. Then Vlad. Even _Skulker_ had it and had to quarantine himself on his island.

Unfortunately, the symptoms were very obvious, and he'd been forced to hide out in Vlad's manor once again with Dan in tow. As if they were running fevers or something of the sort, Maddie and Sam had flocked over to the house and fussed over the three of them – eventually they'd ended up solely taking care of Dan, since Vlad and Danny had threatened the two women with some creatively violent uses of their powers once it became too much. Of course, they were much less quick to object after Danny got the sudden urge to ride Cujo through the halls of his old high school, or after Vlad thought it'd be a brilliant idea to use the house's electrical wiring to improve his powers. It was a very long two weeks for Danny, to put it lightly.

It was called ghost pox by ghosts because of the glowing green spots that appeared all over the body which characterized the disease. It tended to make one feel dizzy and permanently disoriented. On top of the physical symptoms, it turned out that the disease first and foremost messed with ghosts' heads. Ghosts tended to experience random bursts of energy, overly impulsive behavior, and a loss of inhibitions. The behavioral changes were akin to those of a manic episode in mentally unstable humans. In Vlad's case, he was especially prone to giddiness and hyperactivity, which is why he took to locking himself in his room whenever he could while he was sick.

However, ghost pox also had an added effect on fully-grown ghosts; the disease made one's hormones go haywire, creating an increased sex drive.

This did not bode well with a ghost's mating instincts, as Danny had the misfortune of finding out throughout those two hellish weeks. Especially when Vlad decided to keep his knowledge about that particular symptom to himself, successfully allowing Danny to think he was going crazy and starting to lust after the man.

It would be a lie to say that it started out subtly. No, it all started with a very conspicuous dream. He was eternally grateful that Dan hadn't slept in his bed that particular night, because he'd awoken from an extremely erotic situation. What had woken him up, however, were his loud moans and cries. It was humiliating, to say the least, but even worse were the vivid details which stayed in his mind long after he'd been able to settle down and fall back asleep, making it impossible to look at Vlad the next day.

It went on like that almost every night, but it all turned into a true nightmare when he started getting inappropriate urges and images in his head. The urge to jump the billionaire as he prepared tea for himself in the kitchen, to go into the bathroom as the man showered, to jump him in the hallway and either beg or make him beg.

Then there were the unwelcome mental images which made him want to bash his head against the nearest concrete wall. He tried so hard to push the whole thing to the back of his mind, but his ghost side's will and his own were two completely different things which were certainly not in agreement with each other this time around... or rather, they were in _too_ much agreement. The fact unnerved Danny greatly.

During those two weeks, Danny's eyes were more or less permanently glowing red, whether he was in human or ghost form. Vlad's eyes were likewise permanently pink. It earned them some interesting questions from Maddie and Jack; it also earned Danny some uncomfortable accusations from Jazz and Tucker – in Sam's case, those accusations had been rather violent.

But try as he might, Danny was not able to give his body much needed release without thinking about Vlad, his not-mate. He tried everything, going as far as wandering into forbidden territory like Desiree and Kitty in his sudden animalistic needs, but it all turned out in vain.

He knew something was terribly wrong with him, but the constant disorientated state the ghost pox left him in wouldn't let him care enough to do something about it.

It was an absolute miracle that he lasted as long as he did, what with the visceral behavior that ghost pox caused, but nevertheless Danny still lost the fight. On the tenth night, Danny's sick body and mind overpowered his self-restraint.

Vlad had almost given up hope at that point, thinking that the hypersexuality Danny was bound to be experiencing wasn't strong enough to manifest itself as he wanted it to. However, when he entered the other hybrid's bedroom to ask him what he wanted for dinner, he was pleasantly surprised.

There were no words from the younger man. He simply pinned Vlad against the wall as soon as he entered the room, crashing their lips together and moving his hips rather provocatively while a rather obvious hint as to what his problem was pressed against Vlad's thigh.

Vlad reacted immediately, not immune to the affliction of their increased hormones. Danny moaned into the heated kiss as the smell of spearmint, incense, and the ocean assaulted his senses. The older man gave a primal growl, grabbing Danny's hips and pulling him closer.

The younger hybrid wrapped his arms around Vlad and tangled his lithe hands into his white locks, yanking the hairband off and releasing them from their ponytail. The two stumbled over to the bed much the same way that they had stumbled through the room during the Truce Party four years ago. Danny's back hit the mattress first, then Vlad fell on top of him. Their movements were impulsive and rough, but that didn't make them any less intoxicating.

The two moved their hips against each other, enjoying the friction. Danny bit Vlad's bottom lip hard and the older man hissed, dragging his hand along Danny's chest below him where his hand had found itself under his shirt. Danny cried out as the other man's nail scraped against a most sensitive area.

"Vlad!" he gasped.

Meanwhile, Vlad's other hand had found the hem of his pants. Things escalated from there and the rest, unfortunately, was history.

It became a daily bedtime ritual until the symptoms lessened three days later. Danny spent a lot of time confused and angry at himself, feeling lost and violated thinking back on what could possibly have come over him. Everyone was none the wiser, but Danny still felt as if everyone knew about his moment – or rather now, _moments_ of weakness. As if everyone knew that his own body had betrayed him in such a way, that he'd betrayed _himself_.

It wasn't until almost a week later, after he'd moved back to his apartment and left Dan with Vlad while he tried to sort himself out, that Danny found out about the last ghost pox symptom by definition. The billionaire wasn't there, but he'd still gone over to retrieve a document for his parents from Vlad's files, albeit without his permission. That was where he found Vlad's study on ghost pox. The manipulative half-ghost had let it happen without a word, had let Danny go after him and welcomed it _knowing_ he'd regret it afterwards. This wasn't a simple kiss under the mistletoe – this was much worse. Danny had no idea why it hurt so much that Vlad had done this on purpose – it was to be expected, after all.

He couldn't even bring himself to retaliate with a fight like he probably would have for anything else. He simply cut off all contact with the man. He didn't talk to Vlad for months after that, instead choosing to pass on messages through Dan or his mother, the latter who pushed to get an answer out of him over the disagreement but was eventually forced to give up. The only reason why Danny reconciled – or rather pretended that nothing had happened – was because of Dan. It had been very upsetting to the boy because he was consequently spending a lot less time with his father, and he also got sick a lot more during that time. Danny had to admit that it was selfish of him to punish Vlad by using his son as leverage, and he wasn't proud by any means.

The only bright side was that, by the end of those months without contact, Vlad was on the verge of insanity without Danny and, to a certain extent, without Dan. When Danny finally showed up at the billionaire's house again, he discovered that even Vlad could be broken. Nevertheless, it was the last time he ever wanted to see Vlad in such a state. It had made for a rather hollow victory. Vlad didn't push it half as much anymore (though he still stepped over the line every now and then), and despite how difficult it was, he now heeded Danny's warnings when the other hybrid wanted his space.

Vlad had finally gotten the message.

* * *

**End notes: **No, they didn't have sex. They just got rather creative with their hands. Use your imaginations. Also, keep in mind that Dan's four in this, so Vlad's gotten rather bold once again with dealing with Danny where "Instinct" is at right now.

This turned out a lot more depressing than I wanted it to be, but some stories just write themselves, right?


	6. Teacher of the Year

**Notes:** So I seriously didn't notice that the title for this oneshot was the same as the title for that one Danny Phantom episode when I wrote this. I'm still keeping it, though, haha.

Inspired and dedicated to my lovely reviewer, idkmybffjill011, who suggested a oneshot about Danny teaching a class. So this little bit came out!

Also, I apologize for anything that might seem exaggerated for a sixth grade class, but I grew up in the ghetto. Most sixth graders at my school were either gang members or simply wanted to show off their early onset of teen angst. Danny's just lucky I wasn't inclined to reenact _my_ science class incident where this kid punched the teacher and threw a cart of textbooks to the floor. *shudder* Plus, I had a lot of fun writing this up after a whole semester of guest speakers with both hellish and fairy-tale experiences in my teacher education class. I'm just a big fan of "bad class" scenarios, haha.

* * *

**Teacher of the Year**

Danny sighed as yet another paper football flew across the room and failed to land anywhere near the trash can. The kids laughed at the boy who had thrown the paper football and missed, while the girl who had been hit with it took a binder from the desk next to her and chucked it across the room at the boy.

"WHAT THE HELL? That was my binder!" the unfortunate bystander who'd had his papers and folders scattered through the classroom cried.

Danny groaned, ignoring the continued bickering between the students and simply writing all of their names under the lengthy detention list on the board. "Sydney, pick up Corey's things! You've got lunch detention tomorrow! You too, Randy!" he yelled and didn't bother to answer their protests before going back to muttering quietly to himself. "Last class, last class, last class..."

And it was. Unfortunately, it was also the rowdiest class, where it seemed like the school officials had gotten together and put all of the students with the highest in-school suspension rates in elementary school into the same end-of-the-day science class for Danny to deal with. The last fifteen minutes of the last class of the day were especially unbearable.

He never thought he would be one of those teachers that ignored the chaos in the classroom, but now he came to appreciate his own old teachers that much more. Some students just didn't _want_ to be taught! It was barely his third year of teaching, and already he was disappointed in his inability to keep order in _this _particular class. He'd never had one like it. Most of his students had been pretty good, actually... But no, not this group. There wasn't a single student who sat quietly in the corner doing their work as there had been in his other "bad" classes. God, he was even finding himself labeling the classes just like his college professors had always advised him against doing!

A high pitched scream distracted him from his sullen musings, and he looked over to the nearest set of desks to see two laughing boys crowded around one of his less terrible underachievers, the latter of which was a young girl currently covering her mouth with a disgusted look. He quickly strode over to the three and snatched the phone away from one of the boy's hands, glancing down at the screen to see what it was that had made Laura scream.

"Two girls, one... AHH!" he screamed himself as he read the title of the website out loud, instantly shutting the phone off and pocketing it.

_I wish this wasn't a normal occurrence_, Danny thought to himself before turning to the boys. "Alright, you two! Counselor's office! _Now_!"

"Mister, it wasn't -"

"I don't care _what_ your excuse is, this is _not_ appropriate! This can be considered sexual harassment, you know!" he snapped at them. "You have two minutes to get down to the counselor's office before I call a monitor to escort you there, and _your parents_!"

If looks could kill, Danny would have been dead right then and there. He didn't react to the two boys as they headed for the door, swearing under their breath and slamming the door so loudly that it silenced the thunderous sound of voices that had previously pervaded the room.

"Are you alright, Laura?" he asked in a gentle voice, kneeling down in front of her.

"What, all you did was send them to the counselor's office?" she replied, scorn contrasting sharply with his soft tone of voice.

"B-But I -"

"I'm _fine_, Mr. Fenton!"

He grit his teeth at her haughty tone, nodding stiffly and returning to his desk to call the counselor. He was pretty well-liked overall in his other classes, so why did this one feel the need to be so difficult? All the students seemed to hate him!

Once the phone call was done with, the situation thoroughly explained and Aiden and Shawn assuredly sitting in the counselor's chairs, Danny saw that he still had ten minutes left of class. The lesson for the day had been more or less covered, the homework had been given, and the detention list was probably finalized. He sighed in relief, closing his eyes for just a second as he waited for the bell to ring along with his students.

His ghost sense and the sudden screaming of thirty-four twelve year olds made his eyes snap open. He frantically looked around, but it didn't take him long to find the source of all the panic.

"WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?"

The cryokinetic ghost launched himself across the room, knocking over a couple of desks in the process. Naturally, all the frightened children did was head towards the door. A couple headed towards the window, and about half of them were trampled as they frenziedly looked for shelter. Unfortunately, Klemper seemed to take all the chaos as his cue to merrily head towards the closest group of frightened students huddled together and offer them a probably literally bone-crushing hug.

The transformation was instantaneous as Danny jumped into action mode. He jumped over his desk, landing expertly on the other side and sprinting so quickly across the room that he seemed to be flying. He pushed three students out of the way just in time as Klemper trampled over the desks that the students had been behind.

"EVERYBODY BE QUIET AND STAY CALM!" Danny commanded, not looking behind him to see if the students had listened. All he was focused on was Klemper and anyone or anything that might be immediately within the ghost's reach. The continuous screaming told him that remaining calm wasn't something the students were keen on, anyways.

"Get out of here, Klemper!" the man said, feeling protective of the kids and wanting nothing more than some sense of normalcy to resume. However, all his words seemed to do were upset the ghost.

"WHY WON'T YOU BE MY FRIEND?" the ghost yelled, inhaling deeply to give a distressed cry. Danny's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen, and he picked up the nearest desk before flinging it at the ghost with strength he shouldn't have possessed were he simply human.

That threw Klemper off, and the ghost was easily pushed away exhaling nothing more than a couple spurts of cold air which would have otherwise easily frozen half the class, had his attack been the full-blown ice blast it was meant to be.

Danny leaped over toppled-over desks and chairs, landing in a cat-like stance next to his own desk and close to where Klemper had been launched. Dismayed, the ghost recovered and lunged at the hybrid. The man gasped and quickly ducked, purposely skidding across the floor in the process and crouching down next to his desk drawer.

"Jacob, get away from here!" he yelled at the boy peeking curiously at his teacher from the other side of the desk. Danny wrenched his bottom desk drawer open and extracted a Fenton Thermos from it.

Unfortunately, Klemper turned to look at the boy that Danny had just addressed, and his personality did a quick flip. "YOU CAN BE MY FRIEND!"

The child screamed as he saw the pajama-clad ghost flying towards him, but Danny was ready. He sprung from his spot behind the desk and landed expertly on Klemper's back, knocking the ghost down with a perfectly covert ecto-charged punch just under the humped area of his back. However, the heavy ghost grabbed him by the arm as if he were a rag doll and reversed their positions, flipping him onto his back while he held onto the Fentom Thermos as if his life depended on it.

"PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!" Klemper screamed into his face.

"Two words, Klemper: breath mints," Danny mumbled before tucking the thermos into his pants and using all of his repressed ghostly strength to flip Klemper over and above him. His reflexes kicked in and he somersaulted the second he stood up, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by the large hand coming towards him.

"Alright, I warned you! In you go!" he said to the spirit before uncapping the thermos and watching the blue-white light suck Klemper inside.

Danny wiped his brow once it was over, though he had barely broken a sweat. He took a deep breath as he nonchalantly straightened up and cracked his back, relieved that his students were no longer in harm's way. All was quiet as he slammed the thermos down on his desk, so the man couldn't help but startle at the unexpected explosion of voice that suddenly came from his students.

"Way to go, Mr. F!"

"That was _awesome_!"

"That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!"

"My brother's never gonna believe this!"

The teacher could only blink as the students swarmed his desk and rained compliments down on him. Some of the kids even clapped him on the back, a couple hugging him like old friends in gratitude for having captured the ghost.

"HAH! Aiden and Shawn missed this! Serves them right for being such freakin' pervs!" Laura said as she came up to hug him. "Thanks a bunch, Mr. F!"

Danny couldn't help but grin. "Hey, I'm your teacher. It's my job!"

The man continued to grin as a couple of students used words to describe the fight that he had no idea they knew the meaning of. It was downright shocking to see them all acting so pleasant, but he couldn't say he wasn't thrilled by it. Heck, maybe he still had a chance to warm up to this group!

"Yeah, who needs that stupid Danny Phanturd!"

...Okay, maybe it wasn't warming up so much as _tolerating_ this group.


	7. Neighbor

**Notes:** I had so much fun with this one. I just love it when Dan's bad and Vlad tries to be a good dad but fails. Dan's a little bit too evil in this, but he doesn't mean to really _hurt_ anyone. At this point, he's just got a warped and maybe oversimplified concept of things – not to mention that, despite his brains and good perception, he's very immature in other areas.

This oneshot and the next two are just a little something before we jump into the portal along with Walker for the upcoming chapter ten. Also, it might or might not be my way of stalling as I draft the next couple chapters before posting any new ones. Ahem.

* * *

**Neighbor**

Nobody knew how old Donna Singer was, only that she was very old and very rich. And now that her brother had died, everyone knew that she was the last one left in that generation of her family. It wasn't out of their own desire to know more about her that they knew this, but because she would constantly harass anybody that dared pass by her house with the information, using her wooden walking cane to make sure her words were well-remembered.

Dan was one of those unfortunate victims, and her favorite one at that.

The nine year old was playing out on the sidewalk after a long first week of fourth grade. It turned out that the third graders' playground didn't have a watchtower, which was upsetting to both him and Jenna – it had been their usual recess hangout since second grade. On that Friday, he was unwinding, ecstatic over the fact that the psychotic neighbor lady wasn't around on that warm August afternoon.

He didn't usually go outside to play – there was plenty to do inside his house, or at most inside their own vast yard or by the pool – but there was a new house being built across the street, and there was a particular young worker who was quite accident-prone and who amused Dan to no end.

And so the young hybrid was sitting idly on the sidewalk, simply enjoying the day and the construction worker once again dropping a beam to the ground with a loud clatter. He shouldn't have expected it to last.

At that moment, Dan heard footsteps approaching him, but with a weary sigh he tried to convince himself that they didn't belong to the person he thought they did. When he heard the thumping of a cane on the brick walkway, he tried to convince himself that she wasn't heading towards him. When she had hit him directly behind the head with her cane, however, there was no more convincing himself of anything.

"What are you doing in front of my house? You're planning something, aren't you, you little brat?"

Dan's eyes watered and he rubbed the back of his head. "I'm _not_ in front of your house!" he snapped at her. "I'm in front of – OW!"

"Is that how you've been taught to talk to your elders? See, that's what you get when you're raised by wolves with no mother in sight."

The boy glared heatedly at her, having enough sense to control any unwilling glow his eyes might have shown. "Look, _Mrs. Singer_," he said through gritted teeth, "I'm not doing anything to you, so can you please just leave me alone?"

Her wrinkled eyes narrowed, and he tensed, ready to duck another swing of her cane. "'Leave you alone?' You've got quite the mouth on you, boy. I can see your sarcasm! Why, if my brother were here, he'd whoop your -"

"I'll just leave, now," Dan interrupted, quickly climbing to his feet and beginning his hasty retreat. Unexpectedly, however, something hit him around the ankles and he fell to the floor, landing rather painfully on his back.

"Do _not_ walk away when an adult is talking to you! And what's more, I was talking about my brother! Not even a little respect for his memory, I can't believe children these days are this incorrigible!"

"Geez, what is your _problem_, Mrs. Singer?" Dan snapped as he began to sit up, thoroughly fed up with her rough treatment which had been ongoing for far too long.

The coup de grâce for his lack of inhibitions towards the woman came right as the young half-ghost was sitting up. He yelped loudly when he felt his scalp sting something horrible, feeling several hairs get painfully ripped away as Mrs. Singer put her cane down on a long strand of his wavy black hair and tangled it around the walking stick like spaghetti. He angrily phased away from the offending piece of wood, jumping to his feet as quickly as he could and turning to glare at her, his anger unconcealed. She looked at him in puzzlement, baffled at how he had escaped her homemade trap, but he ignored it as he turned his back and stomped off in a fury.

The moment she had placed that cane down on the sidewalk floor and somehow managed to tangle it in his hair – when she had had the gall to _mess with his hair_ – she had declared war. And _nobody _won in a war against a Masters.

* * *

It wasn't hard to break into Mrs. Singer's house, being half-ghost and all. If it had been his grandparents' house, or even his own, he would certainly have set off a myriad of alarms being in his ghost form at this time of night. However, it was only an old lady's house, which meant that phasing inside was easier than walking into a supermarket in human form.

Dan took his sweet time inspecting the place until he found a few things that would be useful to his plan, as well as the location of Mrs. Singer's bedroom. He studied a couple things over here, took a few things from over there, and before he knew it he was ready to start his good, clean, wholesome fun of traumatizing the neighbor.

With a snigger, he turned invisible before flying up the staircase. Dan hesitated only a second before grabbing the handle and throwing the door open with a loud bang, phasing through it as it bounced back from the wall and floating near Mrs. Singer's bed as she shot up with a strangled gasp. He was surprised that she still had her hearing intact; he'd been debating on whether she used a hearing aid or not for the longest time. Or maybe she'd simply felt the door slam. Either way, it didn't matter, for he still had the rest of the act to put on.

"Who's there?" she asked in a quivering voice, and Dan took that as his cue to invisibly fly closer to her, practically feeling the shivers that shot down her spine as his ghostly presence caused the temperature around her to drop. Her breath hitched, and as quickly as her old and tired bones would allow her, she climbed out of bed and shot her hand towards the phone.

Dan, however, grabbed the telephone before she could reach it and turned it intangible so that her hand went right through.

"What the Sam heck is going on?" she asked herself before grabbing her cane and she speed-walking towards the door. Dan could sense the fear radiating from – it made him feel strange to know he caused the feeling, and he began to have second thoughts before pushing it to the back of his mind. He let her walk away, holding in giggles as he flew down the stairs at light speed.

When Mrs. Singer finally made it down the stairs, there was quite a sight set up to greet her. A group of ectoplasmic skulls, floating eerily and slowly in mid-air, grotesquely accurate to what actual human skulls looked like save for the green glow that defined them.

"Ahh!" the woman screamed before she suddenly found a hidden burst of speed inside of her and lunged towards the phone set by the staircase banister before Dan could get to it. "Red Huntress, Red Huntress...!" she muttered frantically to herself as she looked through the yellow pages besides the phone.

Although invisible, the nine year old's eyes widened a fraction as he realized what trouble that would mean for him, and he dove headfirst into the book that Mrs. Singer was flipping through. Him and Box Lunch had discovered that Dan was rather gifted at possessing objects, and he was going to use that to his advantage during this particular scare.

As if caught in a violent wind, the pages of the phone book began to flip erratically this way and that. Mrs. Singer backed away with a slight squeak, dropping the phone in her hand and leaving it to dangle uselessly from its cord a foot above the floor.

The young half-ghost jumped out of the phone book. It took a moment to get his bearings and he was thankful that the woman had not noticed him, since he had lost invisibility when he had come out into the open again. He took a deep breath and braced himself to do what he had been practicing all afternoon.

He created eight shadows of himself, not quite duplicates but rather mindless specters set out to do a single task. The respective clones each jumped into one of the porcelain kittens sitting on the tabletop some ways away from the staircase.

"Meow!" the real Dan imitated the sweet, innocent cry, and Mrs. Singer immediately turned her attention to the cats on the table. She stumbled back as eight pairs of rather menacing-looking scarlet eyes glared at her from the bodies of her precious porcelain cats.

"What's wrong Mrs. Singer?" all the shadow clones said in unison, their voices echoing more than was normal.

Before the woman's strangled cry could become more than that, the real Dan once again jumped into an inanimate object, and the eight shadows disappeared from existence in a frightening display; the gray, rather shapeless bodies lifted from the porcelain pieces and floated in the air for a second, their red eyes – their only visible part – all seeming to stare at Mrs. Singer with intensity, and then they disappeared in wisps of smoke.

All was quiet, but not long enough for Mrs. Singer to make a decision about whether to try the phone again or run for the door at the other end of the house, as the next second she felt something brush against her arm.

"Mrs. Singer," a voice whispered rather mischievously. A scream died in the woman's throat as she turned around. There, the pot of begonias sitting on her windowsill seemed to be acting almost playfully towards her as the flowers swayed their leaves and a couple of petals dropped to the soil below.

"See what you've done? I do so hate this compost, Mrs. Singer," one of the flowers spoke in an unmistakably clear voice.

That seemed to finally help her make up her mind as she bound towards the hallway which would lead her to the front door, her breath erratic and tiny frightened squeaks complementing her slow jog.

Meanwhile, just behind her, Dan jumped out of the flower pot and regained visibility once again.

"And now for the finishing touch..." he said humorously to himself, screwing up his eyes and sticking out his tongue in concentration for his next feat. And just like that, the young half-ghost was replaced with an old man, though his hair seemed much too dark and he seemed unnaturally short. Not to mention that, when his eyes opened, they were a vivid red.

He watched her make her way through the wide hallway towards the front door. Convinced that she wouldn't get there too quickly, the boy posing as an old man levitated off the ground where he had landed and began to fly up the stairs.

However, as soon as he got to the landing, something grabbed him by the back of the shirt.

"Turn back," it hissed in his ear, and the half-ghost nearly blanched before morphing back into his normal ghost form.

But of course, Dan knew that voice quite well.

"D-Dad!" he exclaimed, turning around to see his father in his ghost form and looking anything but happy to see him. He tittered nervously. "W-What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," his father replied, eyes narrowed in a manner that made Dan flinch inwardly.

Dan looked away. "Uh..."

Vlad waited for a response before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. "The ghost alarm went off in the lab, and I just happened to be in there. The ecto-signature on the screen seemed _awfully familiar_, so I decided to see what a certain somebody was doing out of bed. I was curious to see how far you were willing to take this."

Dan's eyes widened and he turned away, his cheeks red with embarrassment. Of course! He had phased out of the house _in his ghost form_! His room was on the third floor, after all. That had set off... duh! Oh, he couldn't believe he had been so stupid!

"Now, do you mind telling me when you learned to shape-shift?"

Getting over his slip-up, the boy couldn't hold back a proud grin, despite seeing that it further irked his father. "I asked Amorpho to teach me."

"Who?"

"Mom's friend."

Vlad's mouth twitched a little, as if holding back a smirk or a smile. "Hmph! And he says _my_ allies are bad influences!" he said to himself in a light tone. Seeing that he was distracted, Dan took the opportunity to nonchalantly begin to make his way back home.

"Not so fast, Dan." The young half-ghost flinched and sighed, turning back to look at his father. "Who were you impersonating earlier?"

"Uh, Dad, Mrs. Singer's probably gonna call the cops or Jenna's mom or something," Dan reminded him before he could be further interrogated. Both Vlad and Dan turned to look down the winding stairs and saw that Mrs. Singer was still visible down the hallway, fiddling with another phone. Vlad sighed and abruptly grabbed Dan firmly by the arm before phasing them through the wall. Dan squirmed uncomfortably in his dad's grip, resisting the urge to go intangible to escape the upcoming scolding.

Once they were safely within the limits of their own veranda, Vlad returned to his human form and motioned for his son to do the same. With a sullen pout, the boy reluctantly descended before a set of blue-white rings transformed him back from Dark to Dan.

"Alright, back to the issue," Vlad said, not hesitating to continue the conversation and Dan rolled his eyes. "Who were you impersonating?"

Naturally, Dan hesitated in his answer, though he eventually adopted a thoughtful yet smug look – which, to be honest, disconcerted the billionaire. That look never meant anything good for him in particular. "Mrs. Singer's brother. I was gonna put on one of her dresses and play around a bit."

Vlad's eyes widened. "You _what_?"

"But you did the same thing to Grandpa the other day!" he defended, then sniggered slightly. "Even though it kind of backfired."

Vlad faltered in his anger, and his eyes narrowed as he tried to counter the argument. "That's not the same thing!"

Dan challenged his father's look right back. "Yeah-huh!"

"Do as I say, not as I do, Dan," the man quickly snapped. He felt rather sheepish; yes, he had very much abandoned all plans to kill his son's grandfather at present, but that didn't mean he didn't engage in some harmless (...more or less) pranks and scares every now and then. Of course, it wasn't as if Jack Fenton was an easy man to scare, and like Dan had said, even simple pranks would sometimes go awry for the billionaire. It seemed that Vlad was more of a villainous plot kind of man.

And he meant it when he said that he wanted his son to do as he said and not as he did. He had felt no shame in his actions, both past and present, until Dan had started acting up like such; he couldn't even remember the last time the boy had gone two weeks without getting in trouble for something morally questionable, after all, and he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't always the best role model for his son.

Nevertheless, that didn't mean that he would ever reveal those thoughts to anyone but himself. He had to be a confident man to make up for Danny's faltering parenting which very often confused the boy. After all, Danny seemed to have become a great fan of the "because I said so" argument, and Dan was not a child who too kindly to unclear or nonexistent reasoning for anything.

Vlad sighed, and he sat down on one of the benches underneath the veranda. He looked at Dan, and the boy seemed hesitant but eventually made his way over to the spare seat.

"Son, the difference between your grandfather and Mrs. Singer is that Jack isn't susceptible to being easily scared, and his heart is not as physically weak as Mrs. Singer's. I know you're not aware of what it's like to experience a loss – and I hope you don't have to go through that any time soon – but Mrs. Singer just lost her brother. Something as simple as this could have sent her the same way as her brother."

Dan contemplated his father's words, feeling rather embarrassed for not planning this out as he should have – both in regards to getting caught and making sure that his prank was harmless (i.e. nobody would die as a result). Still, another thought struck him, and he raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. "But wouldn't she be happy to see her brother? Maybe she'd think it was his ghost," he countered.

"Dan, not everybody wants their dead friends and relatives to come back as ghosts. In fact, most people don't."

The boy couldn't hold back a glare. "But why? I mean, seeing them as ghosts is better than not seeing them at all, right?"

"Dan -"

"Actually, I was being way too nice with her! She's been smacking me around with her cane for forever, and she pulled my hair after school today! I was almost bald!"

"That -"

"I scared her a little bit in exchange for it, and I was even going to let her see her dead brother! I was doing her a favor!"

"Mrs. Singer is _a hundred and two_!" Vlad finally exclaimed, his jaw slightly dropped from hearing the nine year old's tirade. "Why would you think scaring her in such a way would be okay? You could have easily given her a heart attack!"

Dan shrugged. Sure, he felt bad about that last part, but otherwise he thought he was justified in seeking revenge of some sort. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Vlad didn't say anything, but silently stared at him for a long time. After a while, Dan became rather nervous, and was about to ask his father to say _something_ when the man finally did. "Alright, that's it, you're grounded for two months."

Dan's eyes widened. "_Two months?_"

"That's right."

Dan glared, but after a pause said, "But you won't tell Mom, right?"

"This time, I think the situation calls for it. Now come on, I want you back in bed. It's late," the man said, ignoring the boy's pout and heated glare in his direction as he stood up, making his way towards the door.

When he looked back, however, he noticed that his son's pout had turned into a smirk that he was obviously trying very hard to contain. Vlad looked at him in a wary, suspicious manner. "Why are you smiling?" he asked slowly.

Dan turned the other way when he could no longer hide his smile. "I'm remembering Mrs. Singer's face when her begonias started talking. It scared the shit out of her!"

"**DAN**!"


	8. Goth

**Notes:** It had to happen. Sam and Dan are too close for their own good, even if you don't see much of it in the fic. The next oneshot will be posted a few days from now, and then comes the next chapter. Next oneshot should be fun, considering it's about Danny's failed (i.e. sabotaged) attempts at dating. In the meantime, enjoy!

Oh, and I might or might not (a.k.a. I do) mention the outcome of Sam's love life in this. I can explain that... later, hehe. Either way, it's not _really_ significant.

Edit: After watching "Splitting Images" and Echo-heart pointing it out, it looks like Danny's known Sam since at least the second grade. Don't know how I missed that, but it's been corrected. ^.^

* * *

**Goth**

"SAM, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU AND ANY GHOST YOU MIGHT TURN INTO!"

That was the first thing Danny had said when Sam had walked into the house, an ecstatic and grinning Dan in tow. He could only thank whatever deity was out there that had taken mercy upon his friend for the fact that Vlad wasn't there at the moment. The woman would likely not be among the living anymore were the billionaire present. Then again, Danny's mind was currently concocting some not-so-pleasant plans for her as well.

Oh, how Danny wished he had never laid eyes on his son. It was almost as if Sam had been planning this for a while now. After all, where would she even have gotten all of that in Dan's size at such short notice? He didn't even know they made those pants in children's sizes!

Oh. Rich parents. Right.

Still, that did nothing to excuse his son's current appearance! The boy was dressed in black from head to toe. Baggy black pants with chains dangling from them, one of Sam's baggy black band t-shirts (Danny could only be thankful that it wasn't a woman's shirt), and a pair of black Chucks that Sam had given the boy for his birthday a couple of weeks ago. But the worst part was probably the black nail polish that would surely leave Dan's fingernails stained for a week, and of course the black eye make-up that made the child's face nearly unrecognizable. The fact that Dan still vehemently refused any attempts, forced or otherwise, at cutting his long and wavy black hair did nothing to help his current image.

Yes, Danny had always accepted his friend's alternative tastes, but not on his son! Buying him mostly harmless-looking band shirts and accessories was one thing, but he was _ten years old_, for crying out loud! And she had finally all but transformed him into a male child version of her! You don't dress up a ten year old like... like...

"But, Mom, I like it! I look like the Crow!"

Danny seemed to pale at the comment. "That's not someone you should be looking up to, Dan!"

Sam rolled her eyes. "You're both exaggerating. Dan, you look nothing like the Crow. And Danny, there's nothing wrong with getting a little gothed up once in a while. Tucker's done it. Heck, even _you've _done it!"

"I was under _mind control_, Sam! And we were fourteen! It's not the same thing!"

"What I'm saying is that the kid likes it," she said, ignoring his last comment. "Isn't that what matters?"

"No!" Danny snapped, but all that did was cause his son's eyes to flash red.

"Hey! Aunt Sam's right! It only matters if _I_ like it or not! You just can't accept me for who I am, Mom!"

Danny's left eye seemed to have developed a permanent twitch at this point. He angrily turned to his friend, who couldn't help but cringe when she noticed the man's eyes weren't glowing green, but rather scarlet. "You've got him talking like a troubled teenager. I know you and Kwan aren't thinking about kids just yet, Sam, but can't you be a little more considerate? No parent's ready for that phase!" he whispered, before turning back to Dan.

"Mom, your eye's twitching," the ten year old pointed out, annoyed but not surprised by his mother's reaction.

"Don't worry about it," Danny replied. "Now... do want to tell Mommy why you like dressing like this so much? After all, don't you think it's nicer to dress like Jenna?"

"Jenna's a girl," Dan hesitantly replied, looking at him as if he'd grown another head.

Danny grit his teeth when he heard Sam snicker next to him, which naturally caused a smirk to grow on the child's face. "Like your classmates, then," he said.

Immediately after he'd said it, the man knew it had been the wrong thing by the dark look that crossed the boy's face. "I'm not going to be like them! I don't want to be stupid or... or..."

"Shallow?" Sam offered.

Dan vigorously nodded his head. "Yeah! So I'm just being a non-conformist and expressing the darkness within me!"

Sam winced. That one might have been her fault. But how was she supposed to know that the kid would be in a quoting mood that day?

He had never intervened before, being pretty lenient with how he let his son dress, but enough was enough. At this point, all of Danny's patience and gentle persona had left him, and it showed when he addressed the boy next. "Go take off those clothes, Dan! I'll be up to help you with the make-up and nail polish."

"What? Why!" Dan snapped, never one to let himself be ordered around without argument.

"Because I said so! And I don't want to see you dressed like that again! All the black is going _out_ of that wardrobe, young man!" he replied.

The ten year old grit his teeth and turned ghost, flying up the staircase at neck-breaking speeds.

Once Dan was out of sight, the livid mother turned to the woman next to him. "This is the last time I let you watch him!" he hissed at her, trying his best to keep his temper under control.

Sam gulped, but convinced she had done nothing wrong, she tried to maintain her bravado. "T-That's what you said last time, Danny," she mirthfully replied.

The man's glare, however, intimidated her enough to get her to make a hasty escape. "Will you look at the time! Kwan's going to wonder why I've been gone so long! See you later, Danny!" she said quickly, fidgeting with her purse as she speed-walked to the door and not daring to look her friend in the eye.

Danny, in the meantime, was glaring heatedly at the door the whole time. After a while, he decided to head upstairs to see if Dan had listened to him at all.

Of course he hadn't. When he arrived at the boy's bedroom, he found the young half-ghost sitting on his bed, surprisingly enough in human form, but still in the same state he had been in downstairs. His son was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his face propped up by his hands and looking more dour than Danny had ever seen him.

The man observed him for a while, biting his lip in indecision as he heard the boy sigh dejectedly. The glare on Dan's face was half-hearted at best, and he seemed genuinely saddened by the situation. Danny wondered how it was possible that nothing was broken yet, but a look to the door frame on his right showed the door dangling off one hinge.

Danny sighed wearily, taking the door away from its frame and propping it against the wall to be fixed later, and sincerely wishing this wasn't normal behavior for ghost children so he could better reprimand the boy. Dan never moved.

The older half-ghost sat on the bed next to Dan. He supposed at this age – at _any_ age before parenthood and without a religious perspective, really – telling anyone not to dress in such a way would seem pretty senseless. And knowing his son, Dan was probably both upset _and_ confused at this point. It had been building gradually; the boy seemed to have a genuine taste for the gothic subculture, and it seemed to make him happy. Danny only wished he could be as happy with the change that had finally reached its peak. But wouldn't he be a hypocrite if he denied the boy this? He'd been the only one to not make fun of Sam back when she'd started getting into the gothic subculture in seventh grade, after all. He'd even had to convince Tucker to stay friends with the girl. And her uniqueness was one of the reasons why he had fallen in love with her, too...

Danny shook his head. He tried to put an arm around his son, but without success as his son simply became intangible and his hand went right through him. Another weary sigh escaped the man as he fidgeted with his hands in his lap.

"...Fine. You can keep the clothes," he finally said in a defeated tone. "But no make-up! And I'm not going to be the one explaining this to your father!"

To his pleasant surprise, the boy lunged himself into his arms in a hug just as Danny had thought he wouldn't respond.

"Thanks, Mom!"

Danny couldn't keep back a soft smile, and in the embrace he never saw Dan's triumphant yet unsurprised grin.


	9. Dating

**Notes:** I've been waiting a while to get started on this oneshot, but it came out a lot sillier than expected. Oops? ^.^ This last incident was what triggered Danny saying "To heck with it!" and dating Valerie. Because, yes, you all probably knew it was coming. X3

* * *

**Dating**

Dan didn't like the idea of his mother dating anyone. Not particularly because he thought his mother and father were meant to be together for everlasting eternity (even though they obviously were), but because his mother was _his_. Danny was supposed to listen and pay attention to _him_. Danny was supposed to hug _him_. Danny was supposed to take _him_ to Olive Garden and get _him_ fancy new stuff – not some stuck-up brunette with bad skin or some weak blonde with dorky glasses!

This time, her name was Veronica. She had long black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. The way she dressed reminded Dan a lot of his Aunt Sam, which served to further annoy him. She worked at a coffee shop downtown, which was how Danny and her had met. Dan should know; he had been there, pestering his mother endlessly to leave until he'd been forced to set the nearest table on fire as a distraction. Unfortunately, it had already been too late, and his mother and the woman had already exchanged numbers by the time the fire sprinklers had activated. In fact, Dan had come out on the losing end, since Danny had somehow managed to play hero and save a kid that had remained inside the shop, which had further infatuated this Veronica lady.

Dan had tried his usual tricks to get her to stay away from his mom; shoving gross things like bugs in her face, bribing ghosts into terrorizing the house, booby trapping her chair and her car. Yet nothing seemed to work! No matter how horrible he acted, she found it funny and endearing. And she seemed to think she could become Dan's best friend, just because they both wore a lot of black. She wasn't just after his mom – she was crazy, too!

The only thing that seemed to be happening was that he kept getting in more and more trouble as his mother's frustration mounted. The television in his room was being repeatedly taken out, and the parental controls on the training room were repeatedly being implemented – the "repeatedly" part was, of course, due to the fact that his father kept lifting every punishment and feigning ignorance when questioned by his mother.

His father whole-heartedly approved of Dan's need to keep any and everyone with less-than-platonic intentions away from his mother. Actually, his dad was usually the mastermind behind every operation, but his parents were going through one of those phases where his mom would give his dad an ultimatum for something or other. It was nothing new, but that didn't make it any less annoying or inconvenient.

Vlad _did_ help Dan with one thing, though, and that was with digging up dirt on this Veronica woman. After all, how could one properly drive someone away if they were not aware of their weaknesses? And just one far-fetched yet apparently true traumatic experience was all it took for Dan to make some plans.

And although his father might have gone with a more subtle, mess-with-her-mind approach (which always worked wonders), Dan liked things a little more exciting, a little crazier, and quickly done with. The only part that took a long time was asking the Fright Knight to look for what he needed, and despite his clear and utter confusion with his liege's offspring's command, the Fright Knight followed through.

Then the day came, and once he had everything ready to go, Dan turned human outside the entrance to the dining room where his mother and Veronica were having dinner. Only when he was human again and the smell of food wafted up to him did the boy realize how hungry he was; since he spent so much time in ghost form around the house, he didn't usually get hungry. If it weren't for his parents, he'd probably forget to eat altogether! It was probably one of the reasons why he was so skinny.

Ignoring his ravenous thoughts, the ten year old entered the dining room without so much as a knock. "Mommy, I'm – oh!" His eyes widened when he spotted Veronica, pretending he hadn't known she was there all along. "I-I'm sorry! I forgot I wasn't supposed to call you that after the operation, Dad!" he said, though his initially good acting was broken by a twitch of his lip which betrayed a wandering smile.

Danny lowered his fork from where it had been half-way to his mouth and narrowed his eyes at the boy in warning, while Dan simply stared innocently back. If Vlad hadn't already used that story on his French ex-girlfriend, he might have been more surprised.

Veronica snorted in laughter. "Don't worry, Danny. I've seen guys post-op; it's obvious you're all man," she whispered with a wink from next to him, making Danny nearly choke on his food after he'd ventured another bite. Dan didn't get what she meant by her words, but they nevertheless annoyed him.

Dan took a seat next to his mother, dragging the plate the man was eating from over to himself and taking the fork right out of his mom's hands to dig into the vegetarian lasagna.

Danny sighed exasperatedly. "Dan! Go to -"

"Your kid's adorable, Danny," Veronica said through her contained laughter. Dan beamed rather maliciously, though she seemed to miss it completely and instead took it as him being friendly. "Looks like you're in a good mood today, huh, little Dan?"

The boy resisted the urge to sneer at Veronica's nickname for him, and smiled sweetly instead. "Yeah, Miss Veronica! It's 'cause Uncle Vlad took me to the zoo earlier!"

Veronica hesitated in her answer, but nevertheless answered cheerfully. "Oh? Did you have fun?"

Meanwhile, Danny couldn't help but eye his son suspiciously, not a clue as to what he was planning – but the boy was most definitely planning something. They hadn't taken him to the zoo since he was eight, after all, when the excursion had ended in catastrophe.

Dan nodded in response to her question. "Yeah! They got new monkeys!"

This time, Veronica could definitely be seen tensing. "You know, I never really liked monkeys," she added conversationally, though Danny could now tell that she was uncomfortable, and that further invoked his suspicion.

"Well, I like 'em," the young half-ghost said. "They weren't there the last time I went, 'cause they all died or something."

"Oh," the woman said, obvious that she wanted to get out of this conversation.

"Yeah, but we saw a couple of ghost monkeys hanging around. Uncle Vlad says they were probably the ghosts of the dead ones."

She was quiet, though her eyes had glazed over with some unknown memory.

"Dan, what are you doing?" Danny hissed into the boy's ear to his left.

Dan took another bite of the lasagna in front of him. "I'm just trying to be nice to your girlfriend, Dad," he replied, his pointy teeth displayed in a full grin. Danny felt a pit of dread build in his stomach.

"Dan, if you -"

"Actually," Dan continued, and Veronica turned her attention to him once again, "since Dad's so interested in ghosts, he brought them home... but I haven't seen 'em in a while. I was looking for them, but..." the boy trailed off and bit his lip while looking off to the side. His eyes lit up when his sensitive ghost hearing picked up a tiny squeak from the woman.

"DAN!" Danny scolded, clearly seeing that Veronica was frightened of something. Although he could hardly imagine what could cause her such terror in the current conversation. The zoo? The monkeys? It couldn't be the ghosts, could it? She was dating the son of ghost hunters, after all. Not to mention she lived in Amity Park out of her own volition. He turned to the woman and smiled apologetically. "He's just kidding, Veronica. You know how he gets. We haven't even been to... the..."

A sudden noise caused him to trail off, and he turned his attention to the door. Given that Veronica was distracted, she failed to notice his and Dan's respective ghost senses as the thunderous sound grew louder. He could swear he felt the house shake. No, it was _definitely_ shaking.

The explanation for the sudden disturbance came sooner than he expected, and as soon as it did, Veronica let out a bloodcurdling scream. He himself found it hard to keep down a startled yell.

"DAN, WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"N-NOTHING!" the boy stuttered back in response to his mom's angry demand. Dan winced as his hair was pulled and he was attacked. He hadn't put this in his equation when he was planning things out! One of the many primates that now ran and flew rampant through the kitchen screeched in his ear, making him whimper as his sensitive ghost hearing picked up the sound ten-fold and his ears vibrated.

The dining room table was soon ectoblasted into several pieces, a flyaway table leg barely missing Danny's head as he tried to pry one of the ghost monkeys off his back. All the while, Veronica kept screaming. When she eventually realized that she couldn't run without a monkey or two blocking her path, she simply dropped to the ground and wrapped her arms around her legs, half screaming and half dry-sobbing.

Dan wasn't surprised, of course. In fact, this was more or less what he had expected. Because when Veronica was twelve years old, she had a bad run-in with some ghosts at the zoo. Not only did the monkey-like spirits land her mother in the hospital, but they pelted Veronica with so much of what was questionably ectoplasmic goo that they had to cut all her waist-long hair off. She'd managed to get over her fear of ghosts, given that Amity Park was constantly in a state of panic with them, but the creatures the apparitions had mimicked were another story entirely.

"ARGH!" Danny grabbed the ghost monkey clinging to his leg by the tail and flung it across the room, though the creature simply phased through the wall before phasing back in again and joining its brethren in causing more chaos. By this point, the walls, various expensive frames, and a priceless vase were covered in thick green goo and most of the chandelier lay in shambles on the ground.

Seeing that Veronica was distracted having a breakdown, Danny grit his teeth in frustration before he allowed blue rings to wash over him and change him into Phantom. Quickly zooming over to the boy, currently fighting off three ghosts that were fascinated by his long hair, the man blasted the three ghosts away before bending down to his son's level. "You are helping me clean this up _now_," Danny hissed, blasting another ghost as it was lunging towards Veronica.

The youngest half-ghost stifled a laugh, letting his own set of blue-white rings transform him into his ghost counterpart. He was obviously having too much fun with this, and it was no different with the battle that followed as mother and son blasted ghosts left and right, all the while the woman in the room conveniently kept her eyes shut tight. After Dan retrieved a red and silver thermos from the closest living room, it was all over.

Danny and Dan changed back just in time for Veronica to curiously peek her eyes open through the quiet that had suddenly enveloped the room. She whimpered as her eyes darted around the demolished room, her frazzled black hair out of its ponytail and eyes looking slightly mad with their coating of fear. Then, her eyes landed on Danny. They stared nervously at each other before the man leaned down to help her up, but she surprised him by scrambling to her feet and pressing herself against the nearest wall, glaring heatedly at him.

"What. Was _that_?" she asked angrily, emphasizing the correct words and panting from the recently eradicated scare.

Danny sighed. "I-I don't know, Veronica," the half-ghost said without looking at her.

Veronica's eyes narrowed, and she said nothing before snapping in an accusatory tone, "Your son obviously seemed to know a lot about it!"

"Well, he -"

"And it seems to me like _you're_ responsible for this!"

"I -"

"If this is your idea of a joke, I am _done_!"

"W-Wait! Baby, you don't -"

"Argh, _that's it_! I should've listened to my dad years ago, I'm getting _out_ of this hellish town!"

And with that, the gothic woman grabbed her purse – or what was left of it after the ghosts got done with it – and stomped angrily towards the door.

"Veronica! Veronica, wait! Come back!" Danny yelled, quickly running after her. He only paused in the doorway to turn angry and hurt eyes towards his son. The look made Dan feel bad, but not guilty. It was for his mom's own good, after all.

As the footsteps and Danny's pleas faded away, Dan's blue eyes landed in the upper right corner of the room, and he patiently waited as he felt the presence finally descend. A disembodied chuckle echoed around the room before Plasmius dropped his invisibility and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, staring at the spot where Danny and his now ex-girlfriend had disappeared.

"Good one, son. Although it could've used to be toned down a bit. Either way..." Vlad reached into his silver suit, procuring his wallet seemingly out of nowhere and digging inside before he handed Dan a hundred dollar bill.

The boy quickly pocketed it and grinned. "Oh, come on, Dad. You know I totally just outdid what you did to Christy!" he replied to his father's previous comment.

Vlad laughed. "You wish, boy."

* * *

Half an hour later, after almost getting run over by the woman's car and getting threatened with a restraining order, Danny stomped furiously into his room. His eyes alternated between flashing green and red, almost like a funny pair of Christmas decorations, and he bristled just thinking about the fact that another woman had been so traumatized by his son that she was going to leave town. Danny wished he could say it was the first time it had happened.

If it had to happen, he wished it would have been Vlad who broke him and Veronica up. It was easy to be mad at the billionaire; it was a horrible feeling to be mad at his son. Yet the two seemed to alternate when it came to making his dating life miserable and virtually non-existent. It had taken him nearly a month to ask Veronica out, not because he was shy, but because he was _afraid _at this point. He was genuinely scared of what chaos the next woman in his life would stir among the two other half-ghosts.

He was twenty-eight and his his prime, for crying out loud! And still, his love life was long past being a disaster, thanks to some cruel hand that refused to let him be with anyone but that pompous, snobby, jealous, egotistical... Oh, he could keep going for an eternity, but that didn't change the fact that Vlad always knew how to play the cards just right to make sure that he never found himself in a relationship for more than a month. Yes, he was twenty-eight and had never managed to hold a girlfriend for more than a month since he broke up with Sam. All of it, of course, due to the interference and constant sabotage of two certain half-ghosts. It was simply depressing as well, what with his sister and friends and co-workers his age getting happily married left and right. He wanted that, too! He yearned for it, at this point!

And yet Danny constantly ignored that part of his mind that pestered him about the complications that a woman would bring with the whole situation with his son; forget the simple secret of being half-ghost – that had long ago seized being the most complicated aspect of his life. He constantly pushed away those thoughts that told him how easy, how _nice_ it might be to go for what was, in this case, pure simplicity and just get with the more than willing billionaire. But life wasn't fair, and he refused to go with what was easy just because it was what his ghost side wanted. After all, his ghost side often craved for a lot of things, including some fairly cruel prank ideas and the aura of fear he could often taste around ghost attack scenes. But that didn't make it okay to give in.

Plus, after so many years of sacrificing himself for other people, he wanted his _own_ life.

Suddenly, Danny grabbed his cell phone from his pocket. He looked through the contacts until he reached the "V"s. His eyes narrowed. The same fear that kept him from dating anyone was also the thing that made him absolutely terrified to get too far with Valerie. They had never even tried going on a date, despite their rabid flirting... Well, at least _he _hadn't tried. He would always make up some sort of excuse whenever she made it obvious that she was asking him out. But at this point, it was all _too much_! He truly _liked_ Valerie! And he'd be damned if he would let Vlad and Dan get in his way forever. After all, if there was one person who knew how to keep a secret...

His mind made up, he pressed the button to connect the call and waited as the phone rang.

"Hi, Valerie? It's Danny... I was just wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow night."


	10. The Plasmius Exploration Vessel

**Notes:** Geez, this new semester's kicking my butt. I've barely had time to think about writing for this story; most of my time's been spent sleeping or reading chapter after chapter from texts. And I appear to have fallen into a sort of depressed rut I've been trying to dig myself out of, so even when I have time I have little motivation to write. Kids, never let your first semester of college lull you into a false sense of security.

So here I bring you this little ficlet, sitting in a coffee shop and trying to forget the world with hot tea and evil future self reincarnates. I have a feeling this might have to become my new writing ritual. Hopefully it's not too bad despite the blatant lack of editing, but didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer for something.

* * *

**The Plasmius Exploration Vessel**

"Wow!" three young voices echoed each other as they marveled at the ship of sorts in front of them.

The Plasmius Exploration Vessel was small, sleek, and shiny. It was more dome-shaped than anything, yet it was obvious by the partitions in the metal that it was expandable to much bigger sizes. The glass in the three-person cockpit was tinted so that anyone inside would be hidden from prying eyes, however sharp they may be. The whole contraption had a subtle white glow from its spectral properties which helped it maneuver through the Ghost Zone – not to mention allowed it to gain much faster aerodynamic speeds and phase through objects.

Next to the Specter Speeder 2.0, seeming bulky and dull to its right, the Plasmius Exploration Vessel was a thing of the gods. As it should, since Vlad had built it specifically to outdo Jack's newest invention. It was a contest of sorts – one that only Vlad was aware of.

Dan, currently in his ghost form, lay a gloved hand on the metal surface. He could almost sense its capabilities just from its feel. He watched Jenna as she also ran a hand over it, shivering slightly at the low temperature of the craft. Just as the last child in the room approached the craft, however, Dan turned and shot a small ectoblast her.

"Nobody said you could touch it! It's my Uncle Vlad's!"

Box Lunch retrieved her ectoblasted hand with a pouty glare. "You let Jenna touch it!"

"Yeah, but Jenna's my friend," Dan replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Box Lunch is your friend too, Dark," Jenna said teasingly, a mischievous smile making its way to her lips. Box Lunch looked torn between glaring at Jenna and beaming at Dan.

"No she's not!" Dan snapped.

"Uh-huh. Sure," the human girl replied, drawing out the last word. Before either of the two ghosts could reply, she lifted the glass on the cockpit to reveal the three seats inside. "So are we gonna take this thing into the Ghost Zone or what?"

Dan smirked. "What? _You_ want to go into the Ghost Zone? I thought you were _scared_ to go there."

"I'm not scared! You've just never had anything I can go into. You always wanna just fly in with Box Lunch."

The boy flashed a toothy grin. He excitedly jumped into the driver's seat of the machine and looked confidently around at the controls. It couldn't be that hard, right? And it wasn't like anybody would notice at Fenton Works. After all, being at his grandparents' house meant much less supervision. And an easily accessible ghost portal.

The ghost girl rolled her eyes. "Dark! We could just _fly_ in. Why do we have to take that thing?"

"Because Jenna can't fly!" he snapped, turning red glaring eyes towards her.

"Nice of you to notice for once, ghost boy," Jenna mumbled mirthfully, and Dan gave her a sheepish smile as she hopped into the ship with some difficulty. Begrudgingly, Box Lunch followed the two, and Dan was left sitting in the middle with his tongue stuck out in concentration.

Jenna looked nervously at him. "Hey, Dark? Are you sure you can drive this thing?"

"Sure! I've seen my grandpa drive the Specter Speeder a million times! It can't be that hard!"

"You're gonna crash. Ghosts are meant to _fly_, not drive, Dark!" the blue-skinned girl said, shooting nervous glances around the vessel as the glass window was lowered. Dan pressed a button and he dashboard lit up with eerie blue lighting.

A couple of minutes went by, and Jenna looked at the half-ghost impatiently. "Are we going or not?"

"Hold on! I'm looking for the button to make it go!"

"Don't you have to use the things on the floor? Like in a car?"

Dan froze, looking down and turning red when he remembered that it was indeed the pedals that would make the ship accelerate. Being too small to reach them still, he adopted a ghostly tail and hovered above it. Jenna squealed in excitement next to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders.

"This is gonna be so much fun!"

Box Lunch, in the meantime, glared daggers into the human girl.

The excitement was contagious, and Dan's eyes lit up as he looked ahead into the open ghost portal and floored the pedal with his tail.

The vessel quickly rocketed forward, and the three children screamed as it veered in the wrong direction. Dan had yanked the wheel in his surprise at the sudden acceleration, and the vessel was forced to turn intangible as it sensed an approaching barrier. However, it wasn't able to avoid the collision against the opposite end of the Fentons' lab because both Box Lunch and Jenna freaked out at that moment, jabbing several controls and confusing the machine.

Dan was too startled and busy moving the steering wheel this way and that to think of it, but Box Lunch was still able to turn the three of them intangible as the ship crashed into the wall with a loud bang. The ten year olds were propelled out because of their intangibility, thankfully avoiding being painfully thrown around the cockpit. Box Lunch dropped the intangibility, and Jenna and her landed on the floor while Dan skidded forward a bit before crashing head-first into the wall. A pained yelp escaped him, and he lay still on the ground. His two friends rushed over to him, staring down with worried frowns.

The boy groaned, but otherwise didn't move or open his eyes.

"...Dark?" Jenna asked tentatively, and Dan groaned again.

Box Lunch shook the half-ghost a little, and when he didn't respond she frowned determinedly. "Don't worry Dark, I'll save you!"

"What are you..."

Jenna didn't have time to finish her question. Her eyes widened as she watched the pigtailed girl quickly lean down and... that wasn't mouth-to-mouth! That was a _kiss_!

The boy's red eyes immediately flew open as he felt something over his mouth, and they widened more than they ever had as he saw that Box Lunch... was...

His blood-curdling scream was muffled by Box Lunch's little kiss. The energy that suddenly flowed through him allowed him propel himself off the floor despite the pounding headache that was building up inside him. He screamed again as he backed away from the girl who was helplessly grinning at nothing.

"Blyad!" he cursed in Russian, any other words escaping him in his shock. "Bozhe moy, blyad! Ahh!**"**

Box Lunch giggled and Jenna glared darkly at her. At that moment footsteps thundered down the stairs, however, and everybody except Dan turned to the lab entrance. Box Lunch disappeared just as the eldest Fentons barged in.

Maddie and Jack paused at the foot of the stairs as they surveyed the dented and damaged Plasmius Exploration Vessel, Dan's friend looking worriedly around the room, and their grandson yelling to the high heavens in Russian while frantically wiping at his mouth.

Jack paused and scratched his head in confusion while Maddie sighed, making a mental note to herself to fix the broken ghost shield erected around the lab. Vlad was not going to be happy when he saw the state his invention and son were in, after all.


	11. Family Secrets I: The Foley Family

**Notes: **Alright, this is Part I of the other character's stories! And by other characters, it'll be Tucker's, Sam's, and Jazz's families. Or, as I like to call it, the "no matter how big it gets, there are no secrets in Team Phantom" series. This one'll be from Aria's point of view (Tucker's wife). It's kinda messy, but I hope you'll enjoy! I wanted to edit a bit more, but I'll be on spring break from March 19-27 and internetless, so there'll be no updates during that time, but hopefully a whole lot of writing!

Tucker's son in this was slightly inspired by my friend's brother, who was speaking in baby-babble one day, and when I saw him three days later he was talking up a storm. It blew my mind, aha.

Aria's so hard to get across. I know what she's like in my mind, but in story form? Sigh. Well, in short, she's a _very_ perceptive person for certain things, and she likes happy things and happy people. Unfortunately, she's more simple-minded than a head of lettuce, with only her perceptiveness and common sense saving her. She can also get into quite a bit of trouble, as you'll see.

* * *

**Family Secrets I: The Foley Family**

Like many other stories, it started out when the two met in college. Well, Aria hadn't been a college student per se; she had just started beauty school in Chicago. After putting up an ad for a male client to fulfill a requirement for her portfolio, Tucker (a college senior at the time) had decided that he might as well trust a beauty school student with a haircut on his student budget. Small world that it is, the two were quick to discover that they had a mutual acquaintance: Paulina Sanchez.

Naturally, Tucker had been quick to notice that Aria shared both brains and beauty with her kin. The difference being that, while Paulina was shallow and only intelligent when popularity schemes called for it, Aria had a good heart (she was secretly an activist) and more of an unnerving perceptiveness than real brilliance. Tucker was immediately endeared to her, if only because he was a little shallow himself; he was attracted to her looks, and her honest dumbness was a bit adorable.

He never thought it would last, but he had no quarrel when she asked to date him exclusively. She thought he was brilliant, and the fact that he was in a community group to deliver higher-end technology to poor countries at that time made her see him as better than he really was.

Aria had graduated beauty school a year later, and while Tucker had moved back to Amity Park, she had gone off to save the whales with Greenpeace. Unfortunately, she had discovered that living on a ship wasn't easy and honestly smelled pretty bad all of the time. Plus, it wasn't like she was getting to play with the dolphins or anything! To her delight, Tucker had come to her rescue and proposed to her right on deck. They'd had to call in a favor from Sam Manson when they were kicked off the boat because of Tucker's big mouth, however; lesson learned, you never say "What's the big deal about whales, anyways?" on a Greenpeace ship.

It was obvious from the moment she moved to Amity Park that Tucker's friends didn't like her much. It was okay, though, because she didn't like them all that much either. Manson was simply so pessimistic all the time, and too sarcastic for her to really get along with despite the little things they had in common. Fenton was something else, though. She immediately got weird vibes from him, and she knew not to ignore them – she had been told on more than one occasion that she had some sort of ESPN or whatever it was called, after all. Naturally, it made perfect sense to her that Fenton and that billionaire who always hung around his kid were head-over-heels for each other. She got the same vibe from the older man, so the two were obviously made for each other.

Fenton and Manson's kid was a weird one, too. But oh, how she absolutely _hated_ that little monster!

She had no idea why the kid hated her so much, but ever since she had met him, he had given her the evil eye. When he was five years old, he had somehow made the roast beef she had cooked explode when Tucker was mid-sentence announcing their engagement. She knew it had been him, she had seen it in his face and in the way Fenton had snickered under his breath.

Then there was her wedding from hell. Oh, karma would surely smite the person who had suggested the six year old brat be the flower boy. She hadn't minded him so much, until he had practically ruined her wedding. She still wasn't sure how everything had turned to chaos so fast, but she didn't remember all of that so much as she remembered when that little monster had the nerve to _bite_ her at the altar!

So when her son, Richard, was born, she was obviously a bit wary of letting the brat around him. Still, she couldn't just tell Tucker that his friends (and, by extension, their famlies) couldn't see Richard, so she was forced to turn a blind eye whenever she knew the eight year old was around Richard when she wasn't.

She comforted herself by thinking that, well, they were both kids. They couldn't do each other too much harm, right? And Tucker _was_ watching after them...

It was one day, just a week after Richard had turned two, that she convinced herself to do a little private investigating. The brat had been waiting to get picked up by Fenton's rich boyfriend (would that make the man his second dad?). Richard was simply running around the living room getting distracted by a different toy every other second while the brat sat on the couch looking bored. Aria, out of obligation and concern that the brat hadn't had lunch yet, brought in some finger sandwiches. The brat had eyed the plate hungrily before practically flying over to the table and eating half of them in one go.

Richard had stopped to stare. Then, all of a sudden, he'd begun pointing and giggling at the older boy.

"Ghos'! Ghos,' _whoosh_!"

Aria had thought it was cute and hadn't paid it any mind – until she saw the look on the brat's face, that is. He looked exactly like Tucker did whenever she caught him picking through dinner before it was even finished.

She'd admit it, she was a curious girl, so two days later she found herself climbing through a window with the pretense of cleaning up the Masters mansion (what kind of rich people didn't have servants, anyways?). They wouldn't mind if she was simply trying to do a good job, right? After all, two men couldn't possibly do the spic-and-span job a girl could.

That was how she convinced herself to start exploring, and that was also how she found herself now hiding underneath a hallway table, thankful for the long tablecloth that covered it. One of the paintings on the wall had unexpectedly moved _on its own_, so naturally she had been spooked. Even spookier, however, was the swirling green... thing that was just behind the painting.

She had to put a hand over her mouth as three ghosts emerged from the portal. Ghosts were a very normal occurence in Amity Park, so that was not what had her shocked. But... that was _the_ Danny Phantom, standing there in the ghost-flesh! Oh, if only she had a camera!

Even though she hadn't lived in Amity Park at the peak of the Phantom popularity, he was still legend in the town, and Paulina had told her enough to make a fangirl out of her.

Seeing that Danny Phantom had company, however, she forced herself to keep calm and look at the two other ghosts. She recognized one of them from the Amity Park online ghost database: Vlad Plasmius, a.k.a. The Wisconsin Ghost. He had been spotted constantly since Masters became mayor of the town, and she was not ashamed to say he was damn good-looking for a ghost. Oh, those muscles that were surely under that suit...!

"Mom, I wanted to go see Skulker like Dad said!"

Looking down, she spotted a little ghost throwing off his cloak and pouting as he descended back to the ground. Having looked for every similarity between her and Tucker in their own son, she couldn't help but immediately notice that the little ghost was a perfect mix of Phantom and Plasmius.

"Dan, you knew we were just going to see Mommy's friends today," Phantom spoke then.

Plasmius sighed rather dramatically. "Unfortunately, your mother doesn't usually do what your father says, _lapushka_. We'll go to Skulker's tomorrow."

"No, you won't. He's got a science project due."

"It'll just be for an hour or so."

"Mom, I want to go see Skulker!"

Aria blocked out the rest of the argument as her head began to ache a bit. She was trying to think about all the little things in the conversation, but all that she could suddenly think about was Fenton and his boyfriend arguing at her wedding with the brat whining about everything.

Wait... the brat? Wasn't the brat's name Dan?

The three ghosts suddenly phased through the floor, bickering and fighting all the while. She grinned once she made her way out of the house. Oh, she was sure of her theory, but a tiny bit more exploring the issue couldn't hurt, right?

* * *

Sitting at home that night with Tucker, she was rather quiet over dinner, staring at her food every now and then.

"Uh, Aria? Is something wrong?"

Aria looked up from her dinner and blinked. "Huh?"

"Well, you've been kind of quiet today. Nothing to tell me about your day? What people you purposely gave bad haircuts? What Paulina's parents made Richard wear?" Tucker said a bit warily.

She looked at him with a gleam in her eye before putting her fork down and setting her chin on her folded hands. "Tuckie, you've known Fenton for a while, right?"

"Since second grade."

"Mmm. So you'd know if he had any deep, dark secrets like... oh, say, secretly being a superhero and having a superpowered kid and boyfriend?"

There was that deer-in-headlights look she was looking for. Thank God her husband wasn't suave when it came to blunt statements. With a mischievous smile, she stood up from the table and began to put away her leftovers.

"A-Aria, what are you talking about? You, uh, why -"

"I'm going out for a little while. Don't wait up, Tuckie."

"A-Aria? Aria, wait! What - !"

He'd never seen her move so quickly in his life, and as the door slammed behind her, Tucker couldn't help but get a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Vlad is so gonna fire me..." he groaned.

* * *

Aria had been going from window to window as the two men and the brat went about their business inside the manor. She was covered in leaves, her clothes dirtied and her ankle aching from when had she tripped in her heels. Still, as long as they were on the first floor, she planned to follow them with her trusty camera phone in hand. Thank God the windows apparently did let out sound, too, as she could hear conversations clearly if she only put her ear to the right spot. Rich people confused her, with their faulty windows and lack of butlers. If she and Tucker were rich, she knew she would demand a maid, and if Dan was her son (which thank heavens he wasn't!) she'd demand a babysitter as well. Or maybe it was just Masters, since Masters was an Amity Park resident and people in Amity Park were overall pretty weird.

So far, though, things were painfully normal. Masters had made dinner (if Masters turned out to be Plasmius, then it'd be kind of like Dracula with the lack of servants), and Fenton had complimented the food while simultaneously insulting the cook. Her first sign there had been the brat's vegetables disappearing – as in, suddenly being gone from the plate with just a touch of the brat's finger.

Nothing else had happened so far. At the moment, she could hear yelling inside the house. Apparently, the brat refused to go to bed (seriously? She supposed she called him "the brat" for a reason), and somehow Fenton was having a hard time catching him.

That was her second sign as, sitting painfully on her heeled haunches, Aria was startled by something zooming by the window. She let out a startled yell, and she was forced to hide herself in a bush as someone approached the window. Getting her camera phone between the empty spaces of the shrub, she quickly snapped a picture of Phantom as his eyes darted around outside, before he finally shut the blinds.

Swearing under her breath, she quickly ran around the house, thanking her lucky stars when she saw the three same ghosts inside one of the living rooms. She picked a couple of twigs out of her hair before ducking under the window frame and pressing her ear against one of the subtle cracks in the window. She held her breath and listened to them argue about the little ghost's bedtime.

She heard Phantom's muffled demand that the little ghost 'turn back' while Plasmius nodded his agreement.

A flash of light caught her attention, and she instinctively pressed the OK button on her cell phone to snap a picture of whatever anomaly was going on inside. She looked down at the finished product and rolled her eyes.

Blue rings around the little ghost's waist caught him mid-transformation and showed that he was actually the brat. She wasn't really surprised – she always knew he was a little monster. Two recurring flashes of light, however, made her snap to attention and curse the fact that her camera hadn't been ready that time.

Her eyes widened and she had to hold in an excited squeal as both Plasmius _and_ Phantom suddenly became Fenton and his boyfriend.

"This is what we're going to do from now on: to be fair, no ghost forms in the house past Dan's bedtime," Masters/Plasmius' muffled voice said.

Of course she was right! They were a family of ghosts!

Aria was rather simple-minded, so she had no quarrels with statements such as "But that's impossible! Human-ghost hybrids _can't_ exist!" She wasn't surprised, but rather giddy at the implications of it. Oh, it was so exciting!

It was fine, though. Even if her husband hadn't bothered to tell her this delicious bit of news, she was okay with it. She smirked. She could keep a secret, too. Or a good bit of blackmail, if ever necessary. Vlad Masters _was_ one of the world's richest men, after all.

But most of all – oh, she couldn't _wait_ to tell her cousin! After all, her husband was best friends with _the_ Danny Phantom! Not to mention that _sexy_ Vlad Plasmius!

She squealed in delight again, barely believing her eyes and all that she had uncovered in a successful night's snooping.

"Did you hear that, Daniel?"

Aria froze for a second, then took her heels in one hand and ran back to her car as fast as her feet would carry her.


	12. Family Secrets II: The Huang Family

**Notes:** It's been and rather interesting month back home. But my updating and writing situation is now better!

I'll admit it, Kwan's probably my favorite minor human character. He's that one adorable Asian everyone knows. And from "Lucky in Love," I kinda fell in love myself, with the idea of Sam/Kwan. There's plenty of it in here, though it's most likely not everyone's cup of tea. Also, I got Kwan's future career as a scientist from TUE. He's in a scene in his little lab coat, so I just rolled with that. :P

Last but not least, a shout-out to **Rubble** for suggesting the Fenton Ghost Catcher make an appearance, what with all these conflicting mate feelings and ghost halves.

* * *

**Family Secrets II: The Huang Family**

She loved him, she really did, but Kwan was such an idiot sometimes! How he got to be a scientist instead of the grocery bagger she expected him to become in high school was beyond her. Even now, his inquisitive chemist mode was kind of canceled out by the fact that he was touching everything in the Fentons' lab like a hyperactive child. Sam regretted his recent interest in ghost chemistry, which was kind of her fault. Kwan had been hanging out with the eldest Fentons on a chemistry study he was organizing involving... well, ghosts, and she wasn't sure why she had tagged along but was only glad that Danny was there to keep her company.

Or at least to help babysit her husband while Maddie and Jack had stepped out for a ghost alert.

"Don't touch that either! I have no idea what it does to humans, but what it does to ghosts is not pretty!" Danny scolded.

Kwan pouted before his face lit up and he went right up to another odd contraption. Dangerously close to it. Danny was quick to run up to the pointy invention and snatch it away, roughly throwing it into a desk drawer where it made the desk light up an eerie green before it settled down again.

Sam sighed exasperatedly, the usual scowl on her face. "Kwan, can't you just wait until Danny's parents get back?"

"But this is the perfect opportunity to get a closer look at this stuff!"

"And get us all blown up," Danny muttered, but Kwan didn't seem to hear him as he walked over to a cluttered corner of the lab.

"Ohh, what does this do? It's like a dream-catcher!"

Danny ran right over as he saw Kwan begin to inspect the Fenton Ghost Catcher. "Okay, seriously, don't touch that!"

As if he hadn't heard him, Kwan got a curious look on his face before picking up the Ghost Catcher from its base. "Hey, this is lighter than I would've thought! What does it do?"

"It splits a ghost's essence," Danny deadpanned as he tried to pry it from the other man's arms. "Now, leave it alone."

Sam shook her head helplessly. "Hon,' I think you should put that down now."

"Hm? Alright," Kwan agreed when he heard his wife speak. He looked around to try and find a place to put it down. As he turned to try and find its original spot, Danny could only look on in a moment's sick realization of what was about to happen as the Fenton Ghost Catcher came right up to him – and went straight through him.

Kwan and Sam gaped as, where Danny had been, now stood two people. Or rather stood one man, while Danny Phantom floated next to him. The two Dannys looked obviously dazed, but Phantom was quicker to recover than Danny, staring from his confused human half down to his own gloved hands.

"I'm free?" Phantom whispered incredulously to himself. Then, he let out a joyous holler before fist-pumping the air. "I'M FREE!"

"W-What?" both Sam and Danny stuttered as they tried to make sense of Phantom's disturbingly lewd grin before he flew full-speed through the basement ceiling.

The goth woman gasped as she watched Danny's ghost half fly off. Meanwhile, Kwan's simply scratched his head in confusion. "Uh, what just happened?"

"Oh my God, we have to go catch him!" Sam yelled, grabbing Kwan's arm in a vice-grip.

"Why? Sam, what is going on!" Kwan exclaimed as he planted his feet into the ground to keep them from going anywhere.

"Because! We have to put him back together!" she said as she gestured wildly at the suddenly panicked-looking Danny in the middle of the room.

"...Put him back together?"

Sam shook her head and slapped a hand against her forehead. "You're going to figure it out even if I don't tell you. Danny Fenton, my best friend since second grade, is Danny Phantom, resident ghost and town hero. We were freshmen, I convinced him to go into his parents' broken ghost portal, he turned into a half-ghost. That's pretty much it. Now, hurry up and let's go get his ghost half!"

She began to drag Kwan, limp and shocked into silence, at a running pace towards the stairs and said over her shoulder, "You just sit tight, Danny! We'll be right back!"

Before she could even reach the stairs, however, she was blocked off by an angry-looking Danny.

"No way! I don't want to be put together with that perverted, irresponsible jerk!"

Sam halted and stared quizzically at him. "Whoa, there! Whatever happened to Fun Danny? Since when is Phantom the irresponsible one?"

"Since he became obsessed with the fruit loop!"

Sam sighed and lay a patronizingly gentle hand on his shoulder. "Danny, we don't have time for your relationship problems. We have to go catch your other half! I really didn't like the look he gave us."

Danny snorted. "Trust me, he won't hurt anyone. I guess. Either way, I'm pretty sure what he wants involves Plasmius, and it'll serve that cheesehead right. Mothers are called the aggressive mates for a reason."

The gothic woman shuddered at Danny's rather vengeful look before pushing him aside. "Whatever! Just stay here and stew over your defective love life if you want, but you're going to get out of our way or you don't want to see what I'll do! It's for your own good, Danny."

The Asian man looked nervously between the two of them, but before he could say anything to try and keep the peace, Danny crossed his arms over his chest and smugly said, "You can't scare me anymore, Sam. I raise Dan _and_ teach middle school. In fact, I think _you_ should be the one scared of _me_."

And with that, he pulled a lever on the wall that Sam had seen but never bothered to find out the purpose of. Danny ducked immediately, but Sam and Kwan were caught by the incoming globs of ecto-goo which slammed them into the wall and glued themselves, along with the two new captives, to the surface.

"Sorry, Sam. You're my best friend and all, but I'd rather have some time away from my other half. For a while, at least. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pick up Dan from school."

"You freakin' psycho! He doesn't even get out until three hours from now!" Sam screamed that scream of hers which could only mean either a week-long protest or a soon-to-be-dead best friend. She struggled in her new bonds, but they didn't budge.

"And he's our kid too, you know!" Kwan yelled after Danny's retreating back, but a second later found himself nose-to-nose with the man.

"Get it right," he said, a frighteningly possessive glint in his eyes, "Dan is my kid and mine alone! No matter what Vlad says!"

"Vlad?" Kwan repeated, but Danny was already making his way upstairs. The basement door slammed shut, and the unhappy couple was silent for a long minute before Sam let out a furious scream and began struggling anew. Kwan also began to struggle.

"You can't keep us here! We'll call the police!" Kwan yelled, though Sam wondered why when Danny was surely long gone at that point. "We'll take this to court!"

"Kwan, just shut up so I can figure out how to get us out of these!"

But he didn't. He just kept making threats to empty air before realizing that Danny had left them trapped, and that was when he began to yell frantically and hyperventilate. Meanwhile, Sam was plenty worried herself. What was Phantom doing now? Was Danny planning to kidnap Dan and kill Vlad or something just as messed up? How much longer would it be until Jack and Maddie got back and got them unstuck from the wall?

"Sam! Sam, how are we going to get down from here? Sam!"

"Kwan, be quiet! I'm trying to think!"

"But what if Danny's ghost is destroying the town? What is Danny's going to do something to Dan? We have to at least get to Dan before he does! What if something happens to him?"

"I said shut up for a second! Sheesh!"

"He's your son! You should be worried about this! I mean, I am!"

"He's not even my kid, Kwan!"

She stopped moving. Kwan stopped moving. Time itself stopped in its tracks.

"...He's not?"

Sam was silent, her mouth open as if to say something but she could come up with nothing, so instead she looked away and bit her lip. "No."

There was a long, heavy silence between them. Sam chanced a glance in the direction of her husband, and her stomach knotted at the crestfallen expression on his face.

"But... but even the Fentons say he's your kid! And it's not like it's easy to say that someone else is the mother, not like with someone's dad! And if you're not his mother, is Fenton even the father? Damn it, answer me, Sam!"

Sam sighed, but resigned herself. From the beginning, she had told herself that she wouldn't tell him anything that wasn't necessary, but she wouldn't deny it if he asked or found out himself either. She always knew being Danny's best friend was going to complicate her love life, even if that love life was with someone else. "He's definitely Danny's son, but he's not mine. It was to protect Dan. And I swear I asked Danny to let me tell you, but he told me it would be better if less people knew about it!"

"So you lied to me... because Fenton told you to?"

She glared at him. "It's more complicated than that, Kwan."

Kwan rolled his eyes. "Obviously. I mean, you've been lying to me since before we even started dating. Do you even know what that feels like? Damn it, I was so happy to have a sort-of son! I love that kid!"

The woman smiled, though it resembled a grimace more than anything. "To be fair, the bonding between you guys never went well. I mean, you've still got a pretty bad scar from that day at the zoo, remember?

Her husband was not amused. She wished he would look angry, but all that was on his face was disappointment. This was another reason why Sam had vowed not to tell him; he had been so excited when he'd found out she had a son. Kwan really did like kids, being quite playful himself. She had assumed that Kwan's excitement had also been in part due to the fact that Dan did not live with her – all the fun without the mess, so to speak. Kwan was constantly trying to make friends with Dan, buying him a plethora of things and trying to bond with him (which never brought pleasant results, but Kwan never seemed to mind). After they got engaged, she couldn't bear the thought of breaking that illusion for him.

A gasp caught her attention, and her intuition told her to run. Run and hide. Too bad she was still glued to a steel wall in an underground lab. Oh, she knew she shouldn't have given him time to think!

"No way. There's no way!" He paused and shook his head. "What Maddie told me about how ghosts reproduce... and if Fenton's a ghost," she didn't bother to correct him that Danny was _half_ ghost, "and the way he was talking about Mr. Masters – the guy he lives with! The one who practically acts like he's Dan's dad or grandpa or something! And you said that you lied to protect him and Dan... Dude, Danny's Dan's mother, isn't he? And Mr. Masters is... a ghost like Fenton?"

She flinched and grit her teeth, but nevertheless forced herself to respond. "How is it that you can figure this stuff out yet you can never find the remote on the coffee table?"

Kwan gaped at her. "Seriously? That's it? I'm right?"

Sam nodded, waiting for the chaos that was sure to follow.

"I love you so much, Sammy."

"W-What?" Her head shot up and she looked confused at the man, who was smiling rather sweetly. She ignored the hideous nickname for the time-being.

"You've been covering for your friend for like fifteen years, you agreed to pose as Dan's mom even though you'd have to have been pregnant when you were like seventeen, and you even let me think I had a step-son because I liked the idea. How is it not totally cool of you to do that for other people?"

Incredulously, Sam shook her head. "How are you even so okay with this? You should be furious that I lied to you like that!"

Kwan shrugged. "Hey, what's done is done, right? And it wasn't even your idea. You were keeping a secret for a friend."

Sam shook her head and couldn't help but smile. This was why she had married him. Kwan's sweetness was something she hadn't been able to appreciate during that brief interim when she had hung out with Kwan during freshman year. When they had met up several years later, she had seen him in a whole new light.

She remembered well that first day of work after being hired as a humane law enforcement officer, fresh out of the police academy she'd decided to go through after getting her degree. Then walking into the animal shelter and seeing Kwan freaking out as she and her partner brought in a dog in particularly bad shape. He had been in graduate school and living with his parents thanks to having no money of his own, and his parents had insisted that he do something with his time that summer. He had decided to volunteer at the shelter simply because he liked dogs and puppies. She had been stuck talking to him while the dog was treated by the vet staff, but somehow they had hit it off.

Oh, how her teenage self would kick her ass if she knew how things had turned out. But in all honesty, a goofy, optimistic, and lighthearted guy was apparently exactly what she had been looking for. What was the saying, 'opposites attract?'

"But you know," Kwan began after a moment of comfortable silence, "there's still the matter that I just found out we don't have a sort-of-our-kid after all. My family just shrank. I wonder how you plan on making that up to me?"

The woman's eyes widened after she caught on to what he was asking a few seconds later. "Kwan? You don't mean – but we've only been married for four months!"

Kwan grinned hopefully at her. "Yeah, but we've been together for like two years, babe."

Sam scowled halfheartedly, though her gaze was more nervous than anything. "And nine months," she mumbled. "Two years and nine months."

"Like three years, then. You really don't think we're ready to raise a kid?"

Chewing on her bottom lip, she whispered, "I'm not sure, Kwan."

The truth was, she _had_ thought about it. Both of her best friends now had kids. And now Jazz was having her first child as well. According to Jazz, it was completely normal for a woman to have the overwhelming urge to become pregnant when there were babies and other expectant women around her. Sam had been dismissing the feeling for months because she wasn't sure she wanted the part that came afterwards – the child. But if Kwan wanted it as bad as the look he was giving her implied...

"I _guess_ it wouldn't be that bad. To have a kid that's really mine. Not just pretend."

The grin on his face was unbearable, but she was saved from his ecstatic ramblings by loud banging upstairs. A moment later, Kwan let out an rather girlish scream as the lab door was blasted clear off its hinges and the absolutely livid face of Vlad Plasmius came into view.

Although relieved that rescue had come, Sam couldn't help but startle at the scene in front of her. Human Danny was trapped in a blue cube of some sort, slamming his body against the apparently impenetrable walls and swearing up a storm with rather colorful threats aimed at Vlad. The logical thing to everyone seemed to be to ignore him.

The condition Vlad was in was also surprising in itself; his cape was gone save for a few scraps attached to the collar, and his silver suit was scratched up something fierce. Sam's brain seemed to stop as her eyes took in the strange red marks littering the ghost's face and uncovered neck.

The ecto-goo gluing them to the wall was cut away from the two of them with a sharp pink ectoplasmic sword, but Sam barely had time to catch her breath after landing on the floor before something was thrown her way. In her hands, she quickly caught the red and silver thermos that was thrown at her with unmistakable anger.

"Put him back. NOW!" Vlad yelled, his eyes practically radioactive in their vivid glow.

"Geez, what the hell happened to _you_?" the woman asked with a smirk. Now that she was free, she felt confident once more.

"You little wretch, just do it!"

She rolled her eyes as she stretched her stiff limbs. "Yeah, yeah. Don't be such a drama queen, Vlad."

"Vlad? Ohh, so _that's_ Mr. Masters!" Kwan whispered, albeit very loudly. Sam winced as she caught Vlad's surprised expression before it turned murderous. She moved closer to Kwan as he stalked towards her.

"I hope you know how incredibly lucky you are that both my Daniels like you," the man hissed before flying up the stairs, presumably to lick his metaphorical wounds, as Phantom seemed to have done quite a number on him.

* * *

Jack and Maddie came back to Fenton Works to see Sam and Kwan Huang cuddling on their couch just as Vlad and Danny were getting into Danny's car, both blushing furiously. They'd refused to look at either of the elder Fentons, or apparently at each other as they'd argued over who was going to drive. Eventually, Vlad won out as Danny seemed quite shaken up for some reason. Being a common enough occurrence, Jack and Maddie had simply shaken their heads and let the two hybrids drive away.

"You know, I can drive just fine. It's not like I got put together wrong this time," the younger man said after five minutes of driving in silence.

"I think they put you together wrong the first time this happened," Vlad replied rather scathingly.

Danny didn't respond, instead turning to look out the window and dwelling on the horrible turn the day had taken. Unfortunately for him, all of the memories from when his two halves had split were just as clear as if he had experienced them himself as one person. Even the sensations were just as he – as his ghost half had experienced them. He banged his head against the car window, immaturity be damned, until Vlad cleared his throat and gave him a withering look.

The man sighed before taking a sip of the now-warm leftover soda in his car. He could handle this. He'd just ignore the fact that he had seduced – no, he hadn't! He'd just push the memory out of his mind. After all, it hadn't really been _him_, right? He'd been split, really. He was two different personalities whenever he ran into the Ghost Catcher.

Now he'd just have to avoid looking at Vlad at all costs for a little while.

_You know, he liked it even more than you did. And it's not like __**he**__ can get pregnant, hmm? So just stop worrying about it already._

The soda he'd been in the process of swallowing suddenly found itself half on the dashboard and half in his windpipe as he began to choke.

"Are you alright?" the older hybrid asked, giving him a half-disgusted and half-concerned look.

"Fine!" Danny wheezed a quick response.

It was official. They really _had_ put him back together wrong.

* * *

**End Notes:** Ah, yes – the beginning of Danny's crazy voice we've been seeing in the last few chapters. Danny's lack of luck has been Phantom's luck, what with parents giving Vlad eggnog and his friends' spouses messing things up for him and getting infected with ghost pox. It's also been _Danny's_ luck, in a way, since there's no way he would've lasted a second holding back without the little incidents. Just a fun fact. Also a fun fact: I might or might not do the missing scene between Vlad and Phantom at a later date. I'm very tempted, but no promises just yet.


End file.
